Guillotine - Blood Money

Whether it has been done as penance for the latest Nocturnal Rites CD, an attempt at grasping onto a thrash revival that has suddenly moved out of the clubs and onto the shelves, or if it’s all just a big coincidence, Nils Eriksson and Fredrik Mannberg probably caught everyone by surprise with their decision to haul Guillotine out of a self-inflicted 10-year state of rigor mortis.

After the shockingly bad "The 8th sin" knocked a huge dent in the credibility of Nocturnal Rites last year with its modern hard rock leanings, a German-style thrash CD was probably the last thing anyone was expecting from the band’s 2 founding members.

What is then even more of a surprise is just how pure a CD ’Blood money’ actually is, more or less a straight continuation of the style on their 1997 debut ’Under the guillotine’, it has any modern influence, and doesn’t worship familiar Bay Area music that many of the younger bands in this style are playing, and offers a straight down the middle 40-minute feast of total aggression.

Mannberg, from the rasping scream that opens the CD to its conclusion, stamps his authority all over proceedings, and no one would be able to guess it has been a decade since he last expelled his ferocious vocals onto record, "Nocturnal Rites" started as a death metal band. Along with new 2nd guitarist Daniel Sundbom, Mannberg plays some impressive solos, nothing out of this world, but memorable and in exactly the right frantic style for this kind of music.

With 11 full songs crammed into the short running time, this album leaves little room to subtlety, with several short and punchy riffs squeezed into each of the 3 to 4 minute songs. On a side note, the back-to-basics approach of Guillotine is not only satisfying in its own right, but also gives hope for the future of Nocturnal Rites with a more aggresive release. The alternative, of course, is that they will treat Nocturnal Rites as the cash cow and Guillotine as the creative outlet, but these musings are academic when it comes to discussing this CD.

Whatever the motivations behind it may have been, "Blood money" has nothing new to offer. We have listened enough teutonic metal during the past two years. Why this album should make the diferrence?