Overview

With Thrash Metal's rising recognition near the mid-80s, and in particular after METALLICA and SLAYER's demos and debut albums, the tides began to turn in North American. From the West and East coasts, bands began to emerge, lashing out with a newfound form of Metal that shares speed and ferocity, heaviness alongside neck-breaking tempos. New Jersey introduced one its most aggressive Thrash Metal bands, WHIPLASH.

Formed in 1984, WHIPLASH unleashed upon the 80s three albums, which in particular, two of them, "Power And Pain", "Ticket To Mayhem", rose up to become icons within Thrash Metal history. Furthermore, right from the get go, even said without playing a single song live, the band signed with Roadrunner Records up until its long hiatus in the 90s.

Dissonance Productions did a major service by releasing "The Roadrunner Years", a special digipack boxset containing WHIPLASH's legendary first three albums, portraying the band's impressive legacy, even if it hadn't really received the rightful status it should have deserved back in the day.

The Pros

The design of the digipack / boxset is quite impressive. The CD version displays a special setting that contain the three CDs, with each CD in place upon its album's artwork. Each CD is numbered, just in case a new listener would wish to listen to the records chronologically. The layout design of the digipack / boxset is credited to Mark of Asylumseventy7. This design worked like magic for this release.

The booklet of the digipack isn't really an actual booklet but rather a short history lesson, liner notes that were written by Ian Glasper. Along with rehashing evidence from past interviews of the band members, along with knowledge of history of what happened in the early days of WHIPLASH, Glasper tells an interesting story surrounding the release of each of the albums in question. Through a well written text, the early career span of WHIPLASH is brought into light and explains quite a lot to those that wished to know the band better.

Along with the written word, there are photos that served as a bright light of those band's early days, portraying old shows, lineup photos and album covers. It is always a treat to look at photos while reading, and "The Roadrunner Years" supplied that amply.

The entire 80s discography was remastered by J.P. Braddock, ensuring that the quality of sound of wouldn't be damaged in any form. The old magic of the rougher releases, such as "Power And Pain" and "Ticket To Mayhem", which were dirtier in origin, was maintained while showing the semi-cleaner, and neater, production of "Insult To Injury".

The Cons

To be honest, I quite perplexed if this should be a con rather than leaving it aside, but I believe that no matter the reissue, or remastered version, or a special kind of set such as "The Roadrunner Years", should include the songs' lyrics. On the other hand, and this is an inner argument with myself mainly, it would have probably made the booklet a lot thicker, as credits would also need to be included as well. Gladly, those credits found their way on the cover. To say that the lack of lyrics hurt the release, it barely did anything.

The question of bonus tracks always rises with these remastered versions. I see every kind of a reissue as a fruitful ground for unveiling tracks that were never released, or rare demo version of songs that never saw the light of day. Maybe the quality of the old 1984-1985 demos of WHIPLASH weren't in shape to be inserted into this edition, who knows really? Either way, it would have been nice to include what is eligible.

Summary

Even without being celebrated as one of the lions of Thrash Metal coming from the US, WHIPLASH reached the title of a Cult band. Their expressive, destructive and strong approach in the 80s made them rendered as one of the toughest Thrash Metal acts of that sacred decade of Metal's golden age. "The Roadrunner Years" is more or less the story of WHIPLASH before they faded away for the first time, and it is one hell of a worthy to tune in.