I don’t know much about thrash metal. I bought a copy of Master of Puppets in the fifth grade
after a friend’s older brother turned me on to the record, but my thrash
education stalled there. I eventually heard Reign
in Blood for the first time more than ten years later, and I’ve heard Kill ‘Em All once or twice, but other
than that I still haven’t made it through thrash 101. My metal tastes tend to
run doomier or dronier, at least to the point where I don’t seek out new thrash
records. Seeing the ghastly cover of Manifest
Decimation, painted by Paolo “Madman” Girardi, compelled me to make an
exception with Power Trip’s debut album.[1]
Knowing that the record came out on Southern Lord, home of many of the best
metal bands around right now, definitely helped pique my interest as well.
Power Trip does not disappoint. Throughout a lean
thirty-five minutes, the Dallas band runs through the gamut of eighties thrash
styles. This is admittedly a small gamut, but the band is able to make the most
of a limited framework. Indeed, the best songs on Manifest Decimation are the ones that don’t deviate much from a
thrash circa 1986 blueprint at all: speed; harsh, punky vocals; and shredding
for shredding’s sake. Nearly every song here makes me feel like a Reagan-era
maladjusted teenager in a suburban basement who’s just a little too angry for
Black Flag.
