Review by Felix on July 17, 2024.

What do football coaches, politicians and musicians have in common? They tend to miss the right time to quit. Sabina stopped Holy Moses too late, Destruction’s last good albums are almost 20 years old, Kreator play soulless wannabe thrash and Sodom have the duty to play the exception which confirms the norm. And Tankard? Well, releases like “The Beauty and the Beer” or “B-Day” haven proven that you should never write off the weird freaks from Frankfurt am Main. The band is not one of these typical one-decade-wonder of the eighties, although the spontaneity of their debut and the impressive power and quality of “Chemical Invasion” will never return. “Pavlov’s Dawgs”, of course, also cannot challenge these classics. Nevertheless, the album is still good enough to lend an ear and therefore it is still unknown whether Tankard belong to those people and groups who miss the perfect moment to say goodbye. Their time just has not come so far.

Two songs of the album stand out. On the one hand, we have “Veins of Terra”. Its lyrics deal with the climate change and those who say that such thing does not exist. The mid-paced composition shines with density and, in alignment with the lyrics, an ominous undertone. Its riffs impress with strict robustness and Gerre delivers a strong and expressive performance. As always, I want to add. He and Frank Thorwarth, the backbone of the band, deserve a lot of respect for their unbroken commitment. Surprising but true, even Eintracht Frankfurt has a few likeable fans, haha. Anyway, on the other hand we get “Lockdown Forever” which convinces right from its thundering drum beats at the beginning. They are combined with the best riff of the album and the whole thing culminates in a very good bridge and a heavy and pretty catchy chorus. The guitar work of Andy Gutjahr is excellent here, including a fine solo, of course. The lyrics are typical of Tankard, entertaining and quirky, but the subject matter seems thankfully dated these days. Corona, was there something? All that shit with all the idiotic restrictions seems light years away to me.

The other songs deliver stuff which is somewhere between acceptable and good. “Dark Self Intruder” has some fine sequences, for example its fantastic intro, and gets the bronze medal here. It is another song with a political message and even though or especially because Tankard seem to have another view on the world than I, I wish they would concentrate on this kind of tracks. They are slightly darker than the rest and, to be honest, jokes like “Beerbarians” are not very funny any longer. By the way, this song (or “Ex-Fluencer”, the title track or “Memento”) mirrors the ambivalence of the album. These cuts are definitely too good to hate them. They do not leave me cold, but the final thrill and / or a brilliant chorus is missing. And there is another point I want to mention: does the scene really need ten Tankard tracks with a playtime of 55 minutes? In former times, compactness was a feature of the best tracks of the band, just remember the simple song patterns of the debut or comparatively late neckbreakers like “Slipping from Reality”, “Frankfurt: We Need More Beer” or “G.A.L.OW.”. Naturally, the guys do not need advices from my side, but Tankard should go back to the roots instead of prolonging the songs unnecessarily. I assume that in particular “Metal Cash Machine” would have massively benefited from a less opulent arrangement, but its rebellious riffs get a bit lost during the six and a half minutes.

I appreciate that Tankard still play pure thrash (their confusion at the times of “The Tankard” and “Disco Destroyer” is no longer worth mentioning) and after roughly 20 decades (or more!) in the business, it is no surprise that they know how they want to sound. From this follows that the powerful production is flawless; transparent, but not polished and clean, but not sterile. So one can enjoy this album, perhaps not always and not each and every part, but it is definitely better than some former outputs of the Hessians, for example the often overrated “The Meaning of Life”. To summarise, I would still be happy to hear more albums from the band, not just out of local patriotism, but because they still seem authentic and likeable. So greetings from Bornheim and thrash on.

Rating: 7.2 out of 10