March Thrash Madness: Night Four

Today is the final day of the first round of the tournament and with matchups in the second round like Anthrax vs Overkill and Megadeth vs Voivod, it guarantees to be just as brutal as the first round. If you have any predictions for how the second round will go, be sure and leave a comment.

Round 1, Match 7

 

 

 

 

Metallica – Kill Em All

VS

Flotsam And Jetsam – Doomsday For The Deceiver

 

 

 

 

 

This matchup is one of the more intriguing ones of the tournament in my opinion due to the fact that both bands have Jason Newsted in common. Metallica’s first album “Kill Em All” was essentially one of the first thrash albums to ever come out when it was released in 1983. Flotsam And Jetsam’s first album “Doomsday For The Deceiver” is a furious assault which heavily features their talented young bassist Jason Newsted who wrote alot of the lyrics on the album, and whose bass is a huge part of it’s epic sound. As you may know, Newsted later left Flotsam and joined Metallica after the passing of Cliff Burton, but once you get past the similarities between the two because of Jason Newsted, these two bands really don’t matchup very well at all. Flotsam And Jetsam’s sound is very similar to power metal in it’s epic approach and their vocalist Eric A.K.’s incredibly high-pitched tones, specifically on songs like “Doomsday For The Deciever”, “Desecrator”, and “Iron Tears”. The bands sound is very heavily driven by Newsted’s bass however, in fact, I think it’s more important than the guitars to their actual sound. Metallica’s “Kill Em All” was created to be a mission statement of sorts for the band and it features some of the greatest heavy metal songs ever written like “Seek N’ Destroy”, “Hit The Lights”, and “Whiplash”. Kill also features a few songs that have Dave Mustaine on guitar and were co-written by him, and if you’re a real fan of tallica or Mustaine, you can figure out which solos are his. “Kill Em All” is the winner here for a couple of reasons, the first being that if it weren’t for “Kill Em All”, albums like “Doomsday For The Deceiver” may not have been written, and the second is because nobody told Jason Newsted when the competition started, so Flotsam had to play without him and he had no contributions to the actual game itself so the score is kind of lopsided.

Final Score: Metallica: 150 – Flotsam And Jetsam: 25

Round 1, Match 8

 

 

 

 

 

Exodus – Bonded By Blood

VS

S.O.D. – Speak English Or Die

 

 

 

 

 

This is the final match of the first round, and it’s definitely the most violent of them all. Exodus are the higher ranked seed in this matchup, and for good reason, they are one of the original bay area thrash bands. S.O.D. are a supergroup featuring members of Anthrax and Nuclear Assault, they are also considered to be the original crossover thrash band. Musically, these two bands have very different attacks; Exodus plays a very straightforward bay area style of thrash, and S.O.D. mix in alot of elements of hardcore and punk. Lyrically speaking, S.O.D. are known for their cheeky, offensive lyrics that were created to piss people off, and Exodus are known for lyrics that include at least 3 references of drinking blood and other violent themes. When you compare the songs between these two, you really only need to reference one song from each to realize just how good they are; Exodus’ “Bonded By Blood” and S.O.D.’ “March Of The S.O.D.”, both are incredibly iconic thrash metal landmarks. As far as deciding a winner goes, even though I am a huge fan of “Speak English Or Die”, the winner has to be Exodus, their songs are more focused, they are much heavier, and quite frankly, I think “Bonded By Blood” is one of the single greatest songs ever written. The final score here seems to be a blowout, but that’s only because Billy Milano spent most of the game on the bench eating popcorn.

Final Score: Exodus: 95 – S.O.D.: 73