by John Serba
Destruction may be one of the progenitors of the German thrash metal movement of the 1980s, but Metal Discharge -- an awful title that unwittingly and humorously implies a particularly painful symptom of some unnamed, fictional disease -- the group's third album since re-forming in 2000, sounds painfully dated and disappointingly one-dimensional. Sure, the toothy riffs come appropriately fast and furious throughout -- always one of Destruction's strong points -- but every song is a borderline-annoying buzz of double-time tempos, relentlessly busy guitar work, and tunelessly barked vocals (backed by gangland-style chants, usually reiterating the song title in a deluge of eyeball-rolling obviousness). Point being, these hyper-thrash polkas get tiresome over the course of 40 minutes, regardless of the professionalism of their presentation, and the poker-faced delivery of multiple clichés during cheesy cuts such as &Rippin' the Flesh Apart& and &Historical Force Feed& (?) borders on nonsensical. Destruction has certainly built an impenetrable fortress of riffs here, but attempting any kind of siege on Metal Discharge (snicker) seems silly, and a bit pointless.