Is that ridiculous? Well of course it is. But then they put out their first demo tape, titled “Heavy Metal Insanity”, and that brought them more attention. The band, led by lead guitarist Rob Cavestany, rhythm guitar Gus Pepa and bass guitar Dennis Pepa, and Galeon on drums, were soon joined by band roadie Mark Osegueda on vocals, and gigged around for the next two years, writing new songs and supporting such bands as Megadeth, Exodus and Voivod. In 1985 they band recorded and released their demo
Kill As One”, produced by Metallica’s guitarist Kirk Hammett. As a result of the tape trading scene that existed in those days, Death Angel found themselves turning up to gigs, and having the crowds sing their songs along with them, despite the fact they had yet to secure a recording contract. The success of this demo led the band to gaining that contract with Enigma Records, and allowed the band to record and release their debut album, “The Ultra-Violence". And the remarkable thing about that was that, after four years of working for this moment, all of the band members were still under the age of 20 on the day of its release, with Andy Galeon still only 14 years of age. So imagine yourself at that age, not only playing so many high level gigs over so many years, but also writing songs like this.
If you are coming into this album without any reservations, or if you are coming into it having heard some of their more recent releases, then what you discover is going to blow your mind. Because this is a true version of a thrash metal album, from the days when thrash was at its peak in its development, and this is a band that meshed and melded with the greats of the genre at their own inception. Metallica, Megadeth, Slayer, Exodus. And yet these guys were just kids, who by the time this came out had had a wealth of experience that most older musicians could only dream of. So when you listen to the songs, you can pick up those influences of the bands that Death Angel had performed with over that time, and while they are there, they do not dominate. They thrash hard and fast, but have developed their sound, their version of the music that had been dominating the Bay Area over that time, and then they had forcibly pressed it onto vinyl for the world to hear. But there is a progression to this thrash metal, with all of the tracks barring the final one pushing beyond four and five minutes, filled with fast aggressive guitaring and hard hitting drumming.
Dennis Pepa actually leads the vocal assault on the opening track “Thrashers”, while the guitar sound is very Megadeth from their first album in style. “Evil Priest” follows and is another excellent song, fast and furious, and ties in nicely to “Voracious Souls”. Lyrically the band is walking the tightrope, singing about a priest inhabited by an evil spirit and then a cannibalistic tribe. The devil and evil have a central piece in the lyrics on the album, but if you are a thrashing teenager it isn’t likely to bother you too much.
“Kill As One” is just a superb song, combining everything that is brilliant about thrash metal into its five minutes. Great vocals, superb guitaring, and drumming that makes you tired just listening to the energy being expelled in driving the track to its conclusion. “Mistress of Pain”, which the band actually dedicated to one of their old teachers when they played at their high school prior to this album being released, actually has vocals from Mark that remind me heavily of Joey Belladonna on the early Anthrax albums. This is followed by “Final Death” on which I think Mark’s vocals sound the best, a sign of things to come over the course of the next couple of albums. And the album concludes with the short and sharp instrumental “I.P.F.S”.
It is possible that the crowning glory of this album is the title track, “The Ultra-Violence", a ten-and-a-half-minute instrumental that showcases the absolute talent of this band and its members. There have been plenty of great instrumental track from all sorts of bands down the years, but this is the equal of those. Everything about it is spectacular. The guitaring and riffing is magnificent, the bass guitar line throughout is wonderful, and the showcasing of Galeon’s drumming is brilliant, proving what a talent he was at that age. I love this song, it is a beauty, and more than worth the ten and a half minutes of your time.
Like a majority of the albums that I have reviewed over the last few episodes, Death Angel was a band I came into on a later album, and didn’t discover this until after that. That album was “Act III”, still an amazing album and one that then forced me to check out the two previous releases. Whereas the sophomore release initially disappointed me, this album did not. When I first put it on, it was like going back to when I first discovered Metallica and Megadeth, and the excitement and sheer joy I got when I first heard those bands albums. And for me that is what is so terrific about “The Ultra-Violence". The fact that the band grew up and played in that era of such influential bands from that area, the songs and sounds on this album are naturally also tied to it. And though I may not have picked it up in 1987 – far out, another lost opportunity for those heady days of the final year of school – it still reminds me of that time just from the style of the music on the album.
And, in many ways, this album stands alone in the Death Angel catalogue. By “Act III” there was a certain maturity that came in the music, not being the rough and frenzied output from the debut. The of course it was 14 years before the next album, and as brilliant as it is, it is a different age of metal by then. So “The Ultra-Violence" stands as a testament to the age, both the era of thrash metal and that individual age of those in the band at the time. And because of this, it remains a wonderfully special album that is impossible to ignore whenever it hits the stereo.
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