“AMG’s Unsigned Band Rodeö” is a time-honored tradition to showcase the most underground of the underground—the unsigned and unpromoted. This collective review treatment continues to exist to unite our writers in boot or bolster of the bands who remind us that, for better or worse, the metal underground exists as an important part of the global metal scene. The Rodeö rides on.”
Growing up in California, I never understood why anyone would call New Jersey “The Garden State” given my only associations with it were those shown to me on trashy TV. I have been assured by many, though, that “it’s not all bad”, and as an adult work obligations have placed me in the Southern parts of the state where I’d encountered colors of green in foliage that simply do not exist in temperate bubble. I get it now, truly a beautiful state as long as you don’t cut anyone off on the road. The unheralded and emerging act Mindrazer doesn’t exactly live in that specific lush region, hailing from a forested nook of a town, Hackettstown, in the North—a real one WaWa kind of place. Perhaps it’s this kind of separation from the hubbub of larger areas that have possessed them to express their existence through amplified disdain and thrash-inspired madness. Loudness breeds power, and power breeds metal. With mighty axes and a voice that we can’t quite place, does Mindrazer have what it takes to turn A Thing of Nightmares into more than just nightmare fuel for our crack Rodeö goons? – Dolphin Whisperer
Mindrazer // A Thing of Nightmares [October 13th, 2023]
Steel Druhm: New Jersey melodic thrash act Mindrazer have an ambitious sound and style that takes me back to the late 80s/early 90s. I can hear Liege Lord, especially the criminally underappreciated Master Control album. I also hear traces of Heathen. Hell, at times I even hear 90s alt-metal darlings Life of Agony at certain points on A Thing of Nightmares. Unfortunately for Mindrazer, they can conjure memories of such noble acts but they can’t hang with any of them. Though they have moments of inspired creativity, the material here is a bigger mess than a NJ landfill. They bravely attempt to blend classic thrash with a fuckton of classic metal ideas and a touch of punky crossover and the batch gets moldy fast. The guitar work on opener “Entombed in Time” has you anticipating good things, but the “unusual” vocals of Nick DeFuria are very hit or miss, coming across like a bad mash-up of Keith/Mina Caputo, David White of Heathen and Katon de Pena of Hirax. Though there are decent moments scattered over the album’s too-long 50-minute runtime, the band’s ambitious writing keeps exceeding their musical ability. I certainly appreciate the Milton Friedman name drop in “Left to Rot,” and the power metal-esque Knightfall” reminds me of Aska in positive ways, but godawful songs like “In the Corner of Your Eye” prove these guys are not anywhere near ready for prime time. Add some bloat to already troubled songs and this train is going straight into the Meadowlands marshlands with all the missing Mob Bobs. Talented musicians no doubt, but troubled vocals and amateurish songwriting reduce this to Midrazer. 1.5/5.0
A Thing of Nightmares by Mindrazer
Felagund: Heavy metal and thrash can make for a strong concoction, marrying trad’s chugging melodicism with thrash’s sneering speed. That’s the heady brew Mindrazer attempted to distill on their debut album A Thing of Nightmares. Unfortunately, these New Jersey gents must have gotten hold of a bad recipe. But unlike a lot of the albums we writers so nonchalantly smear, A Thing of Nightmares isn’t overflowing with mistakes, bad ideas or poor execution. In fact, the vast majority of my negative reaction stems from one thing and one thing only: the vocals. It’s clear the band has chops, and save for a few bumps here and there, they can deliver the goods, doling out heavy metal chuggery (“Suffer in Silence”), thick, beefy riffs (“Left to Rot”) and thrash intensity (“Better Dead”) well enough. But the impact of these tracks and every other is lessened, saddled as they are with a vocalist whose talents don’t appear to match his ambitions. Look no further than the ballad “In the Corner of Your Eye,” where his lack of range and his straining attempts to reach Dio-esque heights are perhaps most painfully felt. It’s not just that his voice can’t comfortably soar or that he’s audibly struggling in places to reach certain notes. It’s also that the vocals themselves feel almost entirely disconnected from the rest of the music, as if the singer chose to record his vocal tracks with very little thought given to what the rest of the band was doing. Add in too many overlong songs on an overlong album, and I feel justified (yet decidedly unhappy) in my chosen score. 1.5/5.0
Maddog: Mindrazer hails from small-town New Jersey but aims high, adopting a tentacled three-eyed skull Khøwyrd as their debut mascot. A Thing of Nightmares mixes thrash circa 1990 with power metal and traditional heavy metal. This promising debut revels in punishing riffs, especially in the three-track run from “Knightfall” through “Extractor.” These choice cuts grabbed me by mixing the intensity of thrash with vocal melodies that recall Iron Maiden. Meanwhile, Mindrazer proves their ballad-writing skills with the killer clean melodies and infectious vocal lines of “In the Corner of Your Eye.” While every song has strong pieces, A Thing of Nightmares doesn’t keep my attention throughout. Tracks tend to run long, made worse by anticlimactic endings that blow past their natural stopping points. Nick DeFuria’s vocals blend Forbidden’s Russ Anderson with an aged Bruce Dickinson; while this sometimes works, the vocals are often frustratingly out-of-tune (“Extractor”). A Thing of Nightmares has the makings of solid power-thrash, but falters often enough that its 50 minutes don’t stick in my memory. Still, Mindrazer’s debut is worth a spin, especially if you long for LiveWire lite. 2.5/5.0
Dolphin Whisperer: Clicking through to Mindrazer and hearing a sample track or two initially felt for me like the lost art of attempting to peruse through Myspace circa 2006—hard to replicate the crackle of shrieking power metal acts like Cellador or re-thrash acts like Bonded by Blood or Fueled by Fire shredding through shitty Logitech speakers. Of course, while some of acts I discovered that way tickled my teenage tastes, they didn’t always age well. Yet A Thing of Nightmares possesses some of the same qualities that drew me initially to the riff-leading, chaos-burning world of thrash and power metal, namely, hosting Mindrazer’s talent for writing big hooks that lead into crowd-roaring anthems and hair-whipping pits (“Suffer in Silence,” “The Misanthropist,” “Crusader”). However, once vocalist Nick DeFuria kicks in, his untrained and unfocused melodies rupture the direction of many songs that could otherwise have been glued together in a digestible manner, “Extractor” and “Better Dead” in particular suffering the most from the painfully unprocessed and over-articulated lines. I don’t expect the lyrics to mean much in a metal album, but I do think DeFuria might be trying to shove too many words in his lines to be able to form the kinds of melodies that could better accompany the music. In their current state, I wouldn’t mind catching Mindrazer with cheap can in hand, kickin’ around time catching ‘fresh air’ just outside the venue before the main act. Despite some killer electric slides and fury-filled kick runs, passing the time listening closely doesn’t feel right just yet. 2.0/5.0
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