Ok, this is another band from the late 80s playing Speed/Thrash. Although they were formed in 1988, they managed to record their first full length “Scars and Strips forever” just 3 years ago. Don’t get me wrong, they haven’t been inactive when it comes to releasing stuff. PHANTOM CROW used to infect the head bangers` minds from time to time. In 1989, the band released their first, 4 track demo. From this demo comes the track: “Take a Look” that opens up this compilation. This record has all the tracks from this demo, but one: “What Is This By”. When I listen to these tracks, I just can’t get it why this band have not become really popular? They used to play some fucking groovy thrash metal of high quality.
Charlie (The Evil Seed) opens the second demo, which is put here, on this cd in whole. Two years that separate these two materials show a significantmusical progress. It is nice to hear that the band themselves didn’t lose their initial originality and style. Dirty, rough sound of the guitars makes this stuff really sharp. This is one of these materials that stood out of the crowd of beautifully well produced and sterile albums. Still, after so many years, this stuff sounds damn powerful. Nice to listen to. The next track is “Bloodlust” which comes from demo 4 from the year of 1994. This track, of worse quality, shows the stylistic changes the band was undergoing at the time. This is apparentlythe same band, but not as powerful as before.
Unfortunately, the band, while picking up the tracks for this album, did not include any from their third demo “Existence”from 1993. Next track “NUMB” is taken from the 1997 ep ‘’A Visit from the Sewage Fairies,’’ and clearly shows the “watering” of the music.Though still sharp, it is not as sharp as it was onthe first two demos. Of course, it isall well played, you can hear this EXODUS-like sharpness when it comes to the guitar work, but this band just doesn’tblow everythingoff like they used to. Two other tracks, “Plagued” and “Dead byDown” were recorded in 2000. They sound ok and are of good quality, but they are nothing special. The album ends with “Run with Flies”, which is nothing outstanding either. Anyway, these 16 tracks put on “Thrashing Spree” are a piece of good metal, I think. It is worth getting, especially as young bands are currently slowly drifting away from this kind of music.
LWS