ACCUSER – Rebirthless

vote
6.5

• Bands:
  ACCUSER
• Duration: 00:37:30
• Available from: 11/21/2024
• Label:

• MDD Records

Streaming not yet available

Minor name of German thrash between the second half of the 80s and the first five years of the 90s, Accuser relaunched themselves starting from 2010, the year of release of “Agitation”. From there, they went quickly and productively, stringing together a large group of records, so much so that “Rebirthless” is actually the seventh of the last fifteen years, the thirteenth overall. How much abundance, one might say. And if imagination and the courage to take risks have never been the heritage of these long-lived musicians, it must be said that adherence to the canons of the most ferocious, square and hardcore-stained thrash has never failed. A conceptual fidelity that could easily be accused of immobility, for some, while for others it could sound like something reassuring, in a world of dizzying and often destabilizing changes.
There is very little that is destabilizing in Accuser's music and even for “Rebirthless” we can roughly express the same concepts enunciated for the immediately previous works, namely “Accuser” from 2020 and “The Mastery” from 2018. We find ourselves faced with a tracklist that makes compactness and impetuosity its main characteristics, with the quartet moving confidently between well-balanced thrash anthems between assaults very straight, tense midtempo, groovy weights and call-to-arms vocals. A consolidated recipe carried out over the years with a certain effectiveness, capable of making a good impression in this case too, even if the underlying repetitiveness somewhat undermines the validity of the operation.
Having underlined the impression of being in front of an impeccable thrash assembly line, the band must be recognized for giving their target audience exactly what they want. The title track is in this sense the perfect manifesto of Accuser-thought: initially tight and wild, it then becomes rigorous and martial, finally groovy and pressing, after a good melodic solo. A track perpetually surrounded by tension and a certain leaden atmosphere, which smacks of urban discomfort and typical suburban greyness. A scenario similar to some strands of old school hardcore, one of the best aspects of the current Accuser, further emphasized in the most arrogant and ignorant episodes, such as “Painted Cruelty” and its pounding refrain.
Some bombastic and anthemic openings may recall Kreator from their latest works, between references to a hyper-classical concept of thrash and wide-ranging melodies, filtered by a heavy and smooth production. An operation with not despicable results for the Accuser, even if, as already mentioned, the developments of the individual songs are quite comparable to each other, although they do not skimp on fury, frenzy and violence.
In some cases the rate of bellicosity from slums is increased, almost as if the Accusers were playing at being the Biohazards of Germany (“When Desperations Scorns”), on other occasions the accelerator is continuously pressed, repeatedly breaking necks with old but still effective topics (“Fear Denied”, short-faced, our favorite on the tracklist).
A spot-on production and individual performances from upright thrash soldiers keep “Rebirthless” well above the mark, even if we struggle to find moments that can really excite us. Perhaps our assessment is slightly harsh, because after all the Accuser demonstrate that they are still very vital and lively throughout the entire course of the album. It is true that some variation on the theme, in the face of such a prolific production, would be welcome and therefore we insert this thirteenth full-length of theirs among the (many) decent, but average, releases that the thrash metal market has absorbed in recent years . For die-hard fans of these sounds, you can easily add half a point to the simple vote above: the quartet has, after all, aged well and still knows how to captivate its supporters.