It's a lot harder to sift through Thrash records these days when so many bands are just playing by the numbers. It's one thing to play the style right, but Thrash is all about the attitude, probably more so than any subgenre. There's also the sincerity element, which basically means if you're just singing about partying and violence vaguely, and your band's name isn't MUNICIPAL WASTE, you're probably not doing it right. So where does that leave us? With a handful of acts that cull the lessons of their 80s predecessors, with the skill and care to make engaging, aggressive, mosh-able music.

Enter GUMOMANIACS, the German Thrash quartet founded by Daniel "Gumo" Reiss. With a pair of competent records under their belt, the group's latest offering "Out Of Disorder" is a frenzy of fast riffs, faster drums, and old-school ferocity. They hit on a lot of standard thematic elements of the genre, but they're also never completely predictable. "Poetry In Black" is a battering, mid-fast-paced song whose dark majesty is only surpassed by the lyrics that deal with the difficulty in expressing virtue through poetry (Yes, like, actual poetry.). The band work further in this direction with the ominous "Weight Of Words", on which the band are at no loss for words in expressing their infernal plight.

The guitar leads are never overly showy, which helps keep the focus on their strong riffs and even stronger lyrics, though the band's melodic sensibility is as polished and rock-solid as any band of their ilk. There's definitely a noticeable influence from bands like DESTRUCTION, TESTAMENT and SLAYER, especially on songs like "Paranoia" where Reiss can be heard using his best "Seasons in the Abyss" yells to full effect. It's the sort of thing that would be annoying if the band were just trying to copy the latter band entirely, but there is more to the band's sound than simple nostalgia. Of course, there are your more standard head-bangers like "Broken Dreams" and "John Rambo", but they are balanced out with songs like the aforementioned "Weight Of Words" and "World Undead". The middle of the album, to me, is the most balanced, following the more straightforward salvo of the opening songs, and while there are a few bits that seem a bit extraneous at times, "Out Of Disorder" is never lacking for quality from top to bottom.

Even though closer, "Final Curtains", trends towards the long end of the spectrum at a whopping 10+ minutes, it never really feels quite that long, and rewards the listener's patience with its incessant riffing and classic intensity. Thrash is kind of a hard sell these days with so much of Extreme Metal trending towards more generally...well, extreme directions, but if well-written, hard-hitting Thrash is your cup of tea, then "Out Of Disorder" checks all the right boxes without succumbing to parody.<