Review by Dominik on June 2, 2025.

Do you remember what you were doing on October 24th, 2024? No? Well, you probably should. That was the day the Earth (allegedly) stood still, as people paused in collective awe—or bewilderment—, because that was the day Anialator resurfaced with Death Is Calling. For some, this marked the triumphant return of underground legends. For others—myself included—it prompted a mix of nostalgic curiosity and vague confusion. Because sometimes it’s not about whether the dead can rise—but whether they should.

Now, I won’t jump on the bandwagon of review-bashing, but let’s be honest: when Anialator released their self-titled EP back in 1988, I didn’t walk away from that experience hoping for a comeback. I wasn’t exactly hailing them as thrash metal’s second coming. They were… there. Existing. And then not. I missed everything they put out between then and now, possibly because it all happened somewhere between the cracks of memory and relevance. It’s like running into someone from your past whose name rings a faint bell—but no strong memories come with it. When you meet again, nearly four decades later, you immediately know you won’t be best friends, but at least you respect the fact that they’ve aged with some pride. Maturity shows, even if they’re still trying hard to be who they once were. And for that reason alone, I feel a grudging respect for bands like Anialator, who attempt to resurrect the spirit of thrash metal’s glory days, even if they never quite had the ingredients to make a lasting impression in the first place.

I’ll skip the legal debates about name rights and focus on what really matters: my take on Death Is Calling. The band´s approach was never subtle, overly technical or, God forbid, even melodic—and nothing has changed on that front. If you were to build a musical arrangement solely based on the vocals, you'd probably arrive at something very close to this record. Tony Gomez, the new man on the mic, offers up a one-dimensional onslaught of aggression, with little to no variation. It’s a performance that enthusiastically throws nuance, dynamics, and empathy straight into the bin. Which, admittedly, works well— if your idea of leisure is running face-first into drywall while screaming about vengeance.

Musically, the album is firmly rooted in a raw, straight-to-the-face brand of thrash. The riffs come hard and fast—no frills, no finesse, no detours into anything melodic or contemplative. The production has teeth and hits like a brick, which reinforces the impression that Anialator didn’t want to re-enter the scene quietly. No, they opted for the “let’s detonate a pound of C-4 and march through the rubble” method, dragging your corpse from the wreckage just to complain that you couldn’t handle a bit of old-school violence. The album is loud, it’s aggressive, and it absolutely wants your attention, whether you like it or not.

'Kill Till Death'—title philosophical quandary aside ("what exactly is there to kill once you're already dead?")—opens the album as many openers do: with a fair preview of what’s to come. No buildup, no foreplay—just immediate shredding, an audible bass (!), and tight, though unspectacular, drumming. Once the vocals kick in, the aggression is dialed up. It’s not bad, just nothing that really sticks; the kind of song you’ve heard before, many times. The first solo attempts to inject some melody, which feels a bit forced—until the guitarist drops the pretense and simply lets it rip, which suits the ugly charm of Anialator's sound far better.

You could pick almost any track from the album and get a decent representation of the whole. That, of course, is also the problem. Every song feels like a slightly modified version of its neighbor. You’ll find yourself scouring for anything that breaks the mold and deviates from their generic approach. Like with 'Memories Of Terror' which trudges—then gallops—along, until a strong riff paired with a throbbing bass line leads nicely into the chorus. 'Hear The Death Call' is a solid headbanger for about 90 seconds, driven by guitars that sound like a rougher cousin of what you'd hear on Viking’s 'Man Of Straw'. Then it suddenly collapses into a meaningless slowdown, before returning to the opening barrage. It´s such moments that made me realize why I keep returning to albums like this: the occasional thrill of panning for gold, and every now and then finding a small nugget among the grit.

'Battlefield Messiah' is, at least for me, the closest thing to a song I can enjoy start to finish. Here, the flaws are minor enough that I need to look for them—instead of being repeatedly hit over the head with them. Sure, it still has all the delicacy of a falling safe, but by this point, you’ve grown accustomed to being sonically flattened. I could keep going, dissecting 'Iron Grinder' or 'Terror Tactics', but you likely get the picture. This isn’t music that hands you revelations. Every listener will have their own favorite track, determined mostly by the minor nuances that differentiate one assault from the next—assuming you have the patience to dig for them.

Rating: 7 out of 10, because while Death Is Calling isn’t exactly reinventing the genre, it delivers what it promises: raw, loud, unapologetic thrash. And sometimes, in a world that’s increasingly overproduced, overthought, and overstimulated, it’s nice to be beaten over the head with something that doesn’t pretend to be anything else.

Review by Greg on December 13, 2024.

And here it goes, another band returning after a brief stint in the magic eighties that didn't leave us anything but demos, and, like in most similar instances, featuring very few of the same members nowadays. Anialator, apart from taking a chance for the worst spelling of the word I've ever seen (and that's taking into account Anihilated and Ennihilate, among others), is also notable for being helmed by bassist Alex Dominguez, who appeared in legendary thrash act Devastation in their early days, and again in their short-lived reunion (trivia: their Violent Termination contained a song – the least worst one – with the exact same title of the here examined album).

Surrounded by a revolving door of fellow Texan musicians, Dominguez finally managed to complete the first Anialator full-length a couple of weeks ago, 38 years after the band's formation, with brand-new tracks only. Death Is Calling presents a reinvigorated collective, although one shouldn't be too surprised at the energy brought to the table as there are a lot of new faces. Sometimes I'm reminded of Brain Langley-era Aggression, minus the death metal influence (so a lot like the awfully titled Feels like Punk, Sounds like Thrash), that is to say, another band likewise with a lone original member left, as well as among the better ones to do it. In any case, Daniel Garcia's drumming is relentless, and the vocals of Tony Gomez resemble a more extreme version of Rigor Mortis' Bruce Corbitt, accordingly to the state. Riffs might not be very original, nor very good at times, but there were some moments I liked such as the rifftastic intro of 'Kill Till Death', which however kinda fails to capitalize on such a head start, the middle section of the slower 'Iron Grinder', or a couple of cuts that simply make no prisoners altogether ('Memories Of Terror', 'Hear The Death Call'), with a very basic approach that is, at the same time, also extremely hard not to appreciate. The sleazy midtempo riff introducing closer 'Terror Tactics' is probably the only thing worth mentioning in the second half, but whereas there isn't a lot that compels me to put the whole thing on again, it's also nothing incompetent or sloppy like their first demos, if anything.

Honestly speaking, after these 33 minutes that surely won't change the world, I'm moderately happy. From what I've gathered, Dominguez had to face ex-bandmates who tried to illegitimately take possession of the band name (proof that you don't need to be in a big band or corporation to get into legal battles), and managed to come out as a winner only recently. Death Is Calling is the closing of a circle and a potential new beginning for the old dogs, like many works in this mini-series but, in a way, even more so than them, due to these happenings. I bet Dominguez is also happy regardless of the future of Anialator.

Rating: 6.6 out of 10