Exodus

Bonded by Blood (1985)

Bonded by Blood is one of the albums that exemplifies what Thrash Metal was about in the mid-1980s. It is violent, nasty, evil, and certainly lyrically shocking in places. More than that it is a call to action (death to poseurs), a statement of intent (bang your head as if up from the dead),  and while it appeals to base emotions like anger,  it is unifying, liberating and cathartic.

The music is mid-paced by Thrash standards, which this allows the band to play with a really heavy guitar tone, that is crunchy/thick - there is lots of up/down or straight down-pick strumming - so the riffs have razor-sharp precision, slicing through flesh like a blade. This is accentuated by a meaty, thumping double kick sound and pounding snares.  Because of the mid-paced speed the percussion is able to be played like those drums are getting hit really hard. Like kicking down a door or delivering a beat down.

Then there is Baloff -  the definition of a Metal front man - all at once he is an outlaw, a ring-leader, an inciter of violence, representative of the philosophy of might is right, and of man of reckless abandon. He sounds downright intimidating on here. He is not the most talented vocalist, and has a fairly limited range of screams, but like a good orator he is easily decipherable,  has a brutal delivery, sounds wicked or evil or crazy and makes you believe he is as capably violent as the lyrical content lets on. That is the magic of this kind of music, it makes you suspend your disbelief, lets you escape into its demented world where the rules are meant to be broken.