Along with Forward To Termination, Soldiers Of Misfortune is my favourite album of Canadian thrashers. Main reason, why I love that CD so much (while I know that there are some metalheads who doesn’t) is fact, that it shows more mature face of a band.
Mature, but they’re not getting any older ! Metal claws still cut like razors here! Even if Sacrifce’s attack here is a bit slower- it’s much more accurate ! Every sound is on it’s place. Just look at the title track of that record. How it gets faster after the atmospheric intro, to put that headbang-mode-on riff. Brilliant ! We’ve got here a band’s transformation. Canadians traded aggression and raw, wild power, for much skill, better solos and a way better lyrics. To be honest, it’s even hard to compare Soldiers Of Misfortune to previous albums. Even if we’re talking about the same band- everything is different now. But it’s still thrash metal on the highest level- look at “In Defiance”. Just a perfect song.
About the production- drums unfortunately sounds much worse, than they used to, but guitar goes with a lot of dirt, yet we can perfectly hear every single note. Also bass guitar is a bit more forward, which appeared to be a good idea, which made overall acoustic effect much more interesting.
So to conclude- Sacrifice grew older, went a different way- made new fans and lost some old. For me- really solid album, one of my favourites thrash records

Wojciech Michalak