Sometimes, old bands come back to life, and have nothing more to show or offer to the fans, just humiliating their works and throwing their name in a deep swamp of dirty mud; I'd really love to name a few, but I believe if I do so, my Editor in Chief and the Co-Editors would feast upon my entrails, so better not write any names. Yet there are some of them that are still producing good material and keeping their musical personality, even after many years.

And on the second group of the bands mentioned above, we have the German quartet PROTECTOR, coming from the past and assaulting the weak. This is their second album since their full time return in 2011, and it is a massive Thrash Metal strike called "Cursed and Coronated".

It's that old and good Thrash Metal style from the 80s, inspired by the earlier works of bands like KREATOR, SODOM, SLAYER and DESTRUCTION, the ones which specialized in turning our brains into shreds due savage headbanging and making our ears bleeds in agony. And besides being old fashioned, it has its own method to it, thus not becoming just a Dolly clone of any other band. It's PROTECTOR, so it's ruthless, aggressive and brutal, but done with quality.

The band's sound is really nasty and raw, but not so dirty that you can't understand what they are playing. I think that their main idea was to sound as organic and spontaneous as possible, similar to how they do live. It's raw, but always clear and with very good instrumental tones.

These guys should be in prison, because their songs are really killing pieces of Metal. As their best bullets I would suggest the nasty and cruel "Xenophobia" (a fast and thunderous Thrash Metal song, with excellent guitar riffs and some old Hardcore influences); the 80s stab in the eyes called "Selfdesdrugtion" (with fine and simple musical arrangements, and very good vocals); the bitter and climatic "Cursed and Coronated" (a slow song, showing very good work on bass guitar and drums), the catchy aggressiveness shown on "Base 104"; the terror storm unleashed when the guitars riffs of "The Dimholt" roar from your speakers, and the hardcore shrapnel of very good vocals offered by "Terra Mater". And as bonus songs, we have live versions for "Misanthropy", "Sliced, Hacked and Grinded" and "Protector of Death", all of them recorded at a show at Dresden, in July 2015. They are full of energy and show that you'll find the same aspects of the recordings during a live show. PROTECTOR is a band made for live shows.

Hear "Cursed and Coronated", and buy it, because this album really deserves it.<