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THE PROPHECY²³
Untrue Like A Boss

Massacre (2014)
Rating: 5/10

Clearly washed ashore through the foam of the charging revival thrash metal trend, German moshers The Prophecy²³ – in spite of their dodgy moniker – don’t make for an all too bad listen if you like basic thrash metal riddled with humour and the variety of a double-barrelled vocal attack.

Having said that, this quintet – which formed back in 2001 – will no doubt have a limited shelf life, but if one consumes enough beer and sees these guys at enough obscure festivals then I’m sure there’ll always be room for this type of middle of the road metal.

So, with its shocking title, Untrue Like A Boss is clearly the result of this bunch of goons watching too many silly movies, playing enough video games to send you into spasm and indulging in child-like wrestling until the sofa breaks.

It’s actually rather irritating if truth be told, the outfit given extra vocal menace through the addition back in 2012 of Philipp Heckel. The band now sprints along in fun-packed frenzy with a deeper, guttural growl matched with a more generic thrashy rasp and spit, resulting in some rather sickly pop-tinged melodies such as ‘Pit Laserbeam’ which sounds like the product of too many college youths getting high on sugary sweets and listening to too much pop-punk.

It’s all executed in fine jest though, even if tracks such as ‘Party Like It’s ’84’ seem utterly insincere; the band clearly not old enough to have been around then but hopefully appreciative of the music that came from then. However, as is the case with so much of this stuff it soon wears thin and the likes of opener ‘The Greatest Wrestling Fan’ seem desperate in their aim to marry a crossover groove with comedy. I just wish these acts would concentrate on their musicianship, because they are clearly decent musicians who would probably benefit more from looking at the more serious side of this wonderful genre of music.

With so many bands getting the bug for comedy-laced thrash metal, I can only see one outcome for a majority of the acts contained within the genre and that’s a perpetual demise. I’ll give The Prophecy²³ some credit though, because this is their fourth album so there must be an audience for this type of stuff. Even so, with ‘Video Games Ain’t No Shame’, ‘Home Is Where You Shred’, ‘Action Metal’ and ‘Tape Trading Like A Boss’ I can only cringe at the comedy and find myself running back to the originators of this sort of metal – bands such as Acid Reign and Re-Animator who put British thrash on the map, only to be cruelly overlooked. I really see no reason as to why I should sit through any more of this contemporary yet desperately retro thrash metal, because if I do then I may well end up with a frazzled brain; this is as vomit-inducing and as mind-numbing as sitting for several hours in front of a games console.

Neil Arnold

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