Power Trip
Manifest Decimation
Southern Lord
Street: 06.11
Power Trip = Nuclear Assault + Demolition Hammer + Leeway
Lord have mercy, that Paolo Girardi artwork! That’s it, I could stop the review here. One peep of that slithering, grinding, writhing wartime pastiche, and you already know where this shit’s going—to the chalky center of your fucking skull. Marching their Bay-by-way-of-Dallas crossover sound right into an acid reservoir of turbulent reverb, Manifest Decimation is dirty. It’s filthy. It’s fully capable of stomping an aural mudhole right through the core of your fleshy brain. No pandering balladry (though the golden era ‘Tallica intro of “Conditioned to Death” calls on visions of Cliff n’ Kirk), or tongue-in-neon-cheek “party thrash” retro jocking. This is nasty, unadulterated crossover thrash, savagely evil all locked into primal concrete grooving— “Murderer’s Row,” “Hammer of Doubt,” “Heretic’s Fork”—all bangers, and all spewed forth from the bubbling lips of Vic Rattlehead right before flatlining. Your heroes are dead—exalt the new ones. –Dylan Chadwick