GRINDER Dawn For The Living [CD]

Originally released in 1988 and a forgotten German Speed Metal classic! Germany was home to many Thrash bands throughout the past 30 years. We have seen acts such as Exumer, Darkness, Mekong Delta, Deathrow, and Paradox leave an everlasting impression. However, one group was sadly ignored from the pack. This group was Speed/Thrash band Grinder. Grinder released “Dawn For The Living” on No Remorse Records (the label that brough us Blind Guardian) in 1988. What we have here is a mixed sound taking hints from early German speed metal classic debuts from Helloween, Running Wild, Blind Guardian, and so forth mixed in with a true Thrash sound (not to argue those former albums aren’t Thrashy). Overall it would just be easier to label this one as Thrash as it contains many more elements than those formers do. Grinder makes it absolutely work here and the outcome is great giving us a unique album that dodges the repetitive issue within Thrash by miles. There are several things we really like about this release, one certainly being the production. It’s pretty top notch for a late 80’s release and has the intensity and raw sound that Thrash needs, while not sounding overly clean like a lot of early 90’s releases did. The variety here is what really makes this album. There aren’t any songs here that sound typical, instead we get some unexpecting twists and turns, great buildups, interesting slow sections, catchy choruses, original solo’s, and so on. Truly this one would be easy to call real Speed/Thrash It has a lot of melodic moments and several early Blind Guardian comparisons, but for the most part it’s still totally in your face and catchy as hell. Grinder would go on to get Thrashier with their next releases and would leave the speed elements behind, though it’s hard to say if they were better writing material like this than their later stuff.