OLD - Down With The Nails (LP)

Old are a killer four-piece black/thrash act hailing from Germany. Germany is known mainly for being the country of origin of the three kings of the Teutonic thrash scene: Sodom, Kreator, and Destruction; all of which have (or had) a distinct style of evil, dirty sounding thrash metal. Then there's other names such as Old who follow suit but take it to the next level. These German bastards have been at it since '03, bombarding us with filthy black/thrash. "Down With The Nails" begins with a slight doomy edge. "Black Jewel Throne" kicks off the album with an assault of catchy, mid-paced riffs that'll certainly keep your head nodding along. Some may be slightly turned off by it's slow tempo, but this is probably the slowest song in the entire album. In addition to it's catchy down beat chorus, it has some pretty cool lead work following after; a thing that's rather scarce in this style of metal. Now, this is not the average black/thrash album. There isn't much use of all-out black metal riffs and you probably won't hear all-out thrash riffs either. What's great about this record is that it has tons of riffs spread throughout that bring to mind an undeniable speed metal influence.