Album Review: "Nightmare Logic" by Power Trip

POWER TRIP

*Nightmare Logic*

(Southern Lord)

Power Trip’s song “If Not Us Then Who” really should be named, ”If we aren’t the ones to release the best thrash album of 2017, then who will?” The eight-song, 33-minute ripper of an album “Nightmare Logic” makes a strong case not only for best of 2017, but for best thrash album since Metallica and Slayer first released genre defining albums in the mid-1980s. Thrash as a movement was relatively short-lived, and Power Trip’s latest effort reminds listeners there is still much to explore. Songs “Executioner’s Tax (Swing of the Axe)” and “Firing Squad” combine uptempo shredding with urgent, anxiety-filled lyrical content and delivery. Compelling thrash combines accelerator-to-the-floor riffing with repetitious grooves, and all songs deliver in fresh ways. And amid all the sonic aggression and lyrical fixation on mortality, the band offers this motivational anthem on “Waiting Around To Die”: “‘Human being’ has lost its meaning when you refuse to fight / If I don’t force your hand it could cost you your life /  You’re waiting around to die and you’re all right with it / Just waiting around to die and I can’t stand for it.” Translation: there is hope in this nightmarish world.

9/10
Click this link to see print version of this review--in the April 2017 issue of Illinois Entertainer. Navigate the PDF file to page 24.