Album title: One Foot in the Grave
Artist: Tankard
Genre: Thrash Metal
Nationality: German
Release date: June 2
Position in Discography: Seventeenth
Estimated Rating:
Have I heard of this artist? Yes
Have I heard anything by this artist? Yes
Average RYM Score: 3.26
Ah, just what I need to blow the sticky, sugary cobwebs of K-pop away! Some thrash metal! I've always considered Tankard to be the non-pirate equivalent of Alestorm, and I can imagine what a gig with both of them on the bill would be like. They've always had a great sense of irreverence, humour and a general ****-you attitude towards, well, everything, and they are always fun to listen to. There aren't as many songs about drinking here as there would usually be on a Tankard album, (actually, there aren't any! What's going on guys?) in fact some of the subjects are quite serious (take “Syrian Nightmare”, which focusses on the war in the Middle East or “Pay to Pray”, which seems to be their “Holy Smoke”, Iron Maiden's rant against organised religion) and I guess with a title like that the album itself possibly indicates a slowly-growing realisation of mortality. But hell, it's still great fun, if nothing original or new.
Ah yeah, but is it, really? I mean, it's great thrash metal, but there are a few too many political messages in the songs, and while that's all well and good, I'm used to Tankard being more about the beer. It's kind of like that time Krusty left on vacation and they ran a boring, dry, David Frostesque chat show with him, not an iota of humour in it. To paraphrase Monty Burns, where's the fun? Thank god their next album, released this year (2018) is entitled
Hymns for the Drunk. I'll be looking forward to that one. Hopefully they'll have got all this political nonsense out of their systems and not want to leave the pub again.
Check out more from this artist? Yes
Check out more from this genre or subgenre? Yes
Actual Rating: