Aptitude For Elimination

Mentally Defiled

Greece has certainly been having a whirlwind romance with Thrash Metal over the last few […]
By Tom Colyer
January 26, 2015
Mentally Defiled - Aptitude For Elimination album cover

Greece has certainly been having a whirlwind romance with Thrash Metal over the last few years.  We have seen some truly fantastic bands coming out of the Mediterranean country and they have all had every bit of fervour that you would expect from a cocaine and beer fuelled Californian from the mid 1980's.  It's truly wonderful to see different regions of the world take these kinds of music on with such passion and get balls deep into producing some great bands.  It would be easy to make assumptions that the recent economic situation in Greece has led to this outpouring of such highly charged music.  It would be equally as easy to just assume that these crazy bastards just fucking love Thrash.  After all, who doesn't?

Enter MENTALLY DEFILED, a five piece band hailing from the countries capital.  "Aptitude For Elimination" is the second full length album that they have released since forming in 2009 and it follows very much in the vein of their earlier release "The Thrash Brigade".  Since the release of their first album they have received massive acclaim as one of the best emerging Greek Thrash bands.  It's easy to see why, they have all of the key ingredients required to make a great example of the genre.  The album starts like a punch to the face and maintains that pummelling speed until it abruptly ends half an hour later.  Fast paced, unrelenting drums gallop their way through the album whilst being chased chaotically by guitars that refuse to slow down for anything.  It is this raw energy that I have to admire, it's not something that many bands can carry off for extended periods of time, let alone all the way through a gig.  I guess this is what I really love about Thrash, it's not about who can play in the most bizarre time signature or with the strangest picking patterns.  None of that nonsense matters, it's just about going ape-shit crazy for half an hour and ending up with your own blood all over your face.

The track names on the album reflect this energy perfectly.  With songs called things like "Reanimated To Mosh" and "Thrash 'Till Afterlife" you are given a pretty good expectation of what's to come.  Interestingly the band seem to have relaxed a little on the political side of their music and allowed the fun to creep into a little of its space, making for a bit of a lighter feel to the album from their previous work.  The only really downside to all of this is that they still aren't pushing any boundaries with the music and there's nothing on this album that you won't hear on any other well produced, well written Thrash record.  Perhaps this is because of the boundaries of the style constricting where it can really go.  It would seem pretty odd if they stopped mid song for a moment of avant-garde insanity after all.

So maybe it's not particularly ground-breaking. They may not be changing anyone's conceptions of Thrash any time soon but if you want something hard, fast and full of spunk then you could do much worse than MENTALLY DEFILED.

7 / 10

Good

When clicked, this video is loaded from YouTube servers. See our privacy policy for details.
"Aptitude For Elimination" Track-listing:

1. Reanimated To Mosh
2. Aptitude For Elimination
3. Fashion Victim
4. Forced To Obey
5. Thrash 'Till Afterlife
6. Retro Nerd
7. The Family
8. Beyond Redemption
9. Merchants Of Hope
10. Soldier Of The Underground

Mentally Defiled Lineup:

George - Bass
George - Guitars
Alex - Guitars
IronBeast - Vocals
Maelstrom - Drums

linkcrossmenucross-circle linkedin facebook pinterest youtube rss twitter instagram facebook-blank rss-blank linkedin-blank pinterest youtube twitter instagram