Nimrod – Legacy of the Dead
Nimrod – Legacy of the Dead
Metalapolis Records
Release Date: 01/12/2023
Running Time: 46:00
Review by Metalphysicist
9.5/10
Once upon a time there was a little kid named Tomás Enrique Araya Diaz, who moved with his family to California, leaving behind his native country, Chile. He’d been playing bass since he was 8 years old and, around 1981 he met Kerry King who invited him to join his band, Slayer.
What Tom Araya couldn’t predict back then was that his band Slayer, among other bands from the Bay Area, would give life to Thrash Metal, a sub-genre of heavy metal that influenced tons of kids around the World, Chile included and tons of other kids from South America, whose have formed several bands to play songs that sounded just like Slayer, Metallica, Megadeth, Exodus, Sacred Reich, Dark Angel, Testament, Overkill, and some others bands which had consolidated the Bay Area Thrash Metal.
Nimrod is also from Chile and has been around since the 90’s, playing in Chile’s Thrash Metal underground scene since then. For your information, here in South America, the Extreme Metal scene bands used to play gigs mainly only in their own country, because South American Metal fans usually don’t give a shit about bands from any of the other countries that make up South America. However, metalheads here were always more universally interested in The Bay Area kings of Thrash Metal. Probably that is the main reason why I have never heard about of Nimrod before.
Besides all the difficulties faced in his country, Nimrod’s founding member Cris Aira was always present on Chile local underground circuit and in the 21st Century he rejoined his band to release Nymrod’s new album, “Legacy of the Dead”.
Nimrod’s new album shows that the band is faithful to Bay Area Thrash Metal, including the producing and mixing of “Legacy of the Dead”, that goes back to the 80’s sound and sonority mode. But that doesn’t mean that Nimrod is just a tribute band to 80’s Thrash Meta,l as they impose their own Modern Thrash approach to the songs on “Legacy of the Dead”.
Thrash Metal as practised by Nimrod is more oriented to an old school Thrash Metal meets Power Metal musical elements, such as ‘Kingdom of Corruption’, which features some guitars vignettes with fifth intervals, inspired by the NWOBHM, and the same happens on ‘Strike to Kill’. I’d like to highlight the guitar solo on ‘Die Alone’ which is very fast and melodic, something closer to what Alex Skolnick plays on Testament’s songs.
Normally I don’t like to write reviews resorting to stylistic comparisons with famous bands who play similar musical styles to the band I am actually reviewing. Each band and the songs that they deliver is enough for me to detect their musical style on their own terms. But I must make an exception reviewing “Legacy of the Dead”, because they play two cover songs on the album. And choosing Dark Angel’s ‘Merciless Death’ makes clear one of Nimrod’s main influences.
Along Nimrod’s Thrash ‘Power’ Metal approach on most of the songs, there are a couple of songs on “Legacy of the Dead” that evokes the typical Thrash Metal feel that is oriented to open the moshpit in live shows, as heard in the song ‘Mortality of the Sea’.
As I said before “Legacy of the Dead” has two cover songs, and the second one is “Neon Knights” from Black Sabbath featuring on vocals none other than powerhouse singer Ronnie Romero (Rainbow, MSG, Coreleoni and Vandenberg).
Nimrods’s Legacy of the Dead” is a ‘must listen to’ album for all those who loves Old School Thrash Metal with a bit of South America’s sauce in the mixture, delivering urgent songs lead by typical Thrash Metal’s fast drums and screaming vocals that is advisable to everyone that, time to time, feels like to banging your whilst listening to some proper Thrash Metal music.
TRACKLISTING:
01. Mortality Of The Seas
02. Kingdom Of Corruption
03. Die Alone
04. Strike To Kill
05. Calling All Sinners
06. Prayers
07. March Of The Damned
08. Legacy Of The Dead
09. Conspiracy
10. The Message
11. Sky Ritual
12. Merciless Death
13. Neon Knights
LINE-UP:
Cris Aira – guitar
Rodrigo Urzua – bass
Pipo Barraza -drums
Leonardo Caballero –vocals
LINKS:
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