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Aggravating this situation, the liveliness and the juvenile unconcern of the previous full-lengths are missing completely. However, there is at least one track which shows Destruction in good form. The riffs of the title track have that certain quantity of aggression which is needed in order to perform a gripping thrasher and the chorus combines catchiness and pressure in a balanced way. Destruction was always better as a 4-piece act and should've stayed that way because Mike can't solo and Harry simply shredded.
I read somewhere that Harry used to practice the guitar 15 hours a day! It definitely comes out on this release. His leads are filled with amazing lines of tremolo picking, arpeggios and sweep picking. Mike isn't able to perform not even nearly what Harry did for the band. You can hear the difference in the lead tradeoffs. The music on this thrash metal album is quality and wholly original. The riffs do stick to you and Schmier's vocals are of course wholly unique and it's easier to make out what he's singing about even on the song "Dissatisfied Existence".
All of the songs are good, just the production is a little weak because of the band's financial situation at the time. I'd have to say this album and Infernal Overkill are the best Destruction releases. Infernal Overkill was another awesome album that had a poor production quality.
I love the riffs on "Unconscious Ruin" as well as the title track. But the song "Dissatisfied Existence" has the most memorable and unique sounds coming from the guitars. The leads of course were brilliant.
If only the production sound was better I'd give this album a perfect rating. Since it lacked a little in that respect, I lowered my review score.
Destruction doesn't really focus much on anti-Christianity on here. It's more about mental health issues. The cover artwork was a bit odd and gruesome, but really original. This whole album in its entirety is unique. The metal guitar and Schmier's vocals are the biggest highlights here. The music is thrash metal to the core mixed in with some acoustic pieces as well as a neat introduction track.
The music isn't extremely fast, but the riffs just stick in your mind and this is another release that you can listen to repeatedly and not get tired of. Destruction's whole discography is good, but their newer material especially "Day of Reckoning" doesn't at all compare to the old and unique thrash metal they used to be.
The good thing is that they've never changed their roots, but when Harry left the band, I don't think that they were the same. As a 3-piece they're still good, but the solos just really suck. The band seems to be putting out new material that's sounding the same all of the time. The mixing was still good every instrument especially what gets left out from a release is the bass guitar.
Not on this one though, Schmier's bass could be well heard throughout the album. Again the production quality lagged, but it's still better than their predecessors. If they put more money into getting a better sound, they would've been the best that they possibly could be. The good thing though is that since the technology isn't like it is nowadays, it forced them to have talent which they do have.
All of the songs deserve praise and the last track was a funny ending to an amazing album. Harry and the rest of the musicians gave it their best and it sure is my personal favorite Destruction release ever.
Again, it's good that they still play thrash metal, but not as good as they used to. Songs here really are amazing and original as I previously mentioned.
A great band and an outstanding release for the thrash metal community. Don't miss out on it! I always want to say that I'm a Destruction fan, but I always stop myself short of it because I realize I can't name a Destruction album that I really enjoy a great deal. They have their moments, certainly, and some classic thrash tracks that are still undeniably worthy years later, but they've never managed to string together a whole album I really love.
It's a matter of time and place, really: Destruction occupies the rather unenviable position of being the lesser of the Teutonic trinity rounded out by Kreator and Sodom. They never reached quite the same level of notoriety, and perhaps more glaringly never seemed to reach for the raw aggression and brutality of their two bigger brothers. While the Teutonic thrash style is present in Destruction's sound, compared to Kreator or Sodom, the band comes off as rather clean and Americanized- too close to Anthrax or Exodus to inspire a lot of confidence.
Schmier's vocals are the primary antagonist here: whiny, sneering, and reedy, they don't convey any particular power and possess a tone that grates the nerves of anyone who can't stomach Mustaine's nasal snorting. The flaws in the performance are so omnipresent and distracting that it puts "Release From Agony" in a similar position as Mercyful Fate's discography for me: to get something out of the music requires staunchly ignoring the vocals, which only half-works when the performance in question is so staggeringly distracting.
Down the road, Schmier would get his vocal shit together, but here he helplessly flounders, with the production pushing his performance way too far into the front to be entirely ignored. Speaking of the production: while a lot of people say this is the first LP in Destruction's discography with serviceable production, I'm not so sure- to me, it sounds claustrophobic and muddy, with a sloppy guitar tone and a sort of trundling bass presence which swamps the music with unnecessary weight.
The songs on the album are light and nimble thrash numbers, but the production keeps them from realizing their true agility and sharpness. Destruction is one of the few thrash bands who actually developed a rougher sound the further they went along in their career. After their terrible mid-period experimentation with post-thrash, they came back leaner and more vicious than ever before- "Release From Agony," on the other hand, comes off as pretty soft.
By '88, just about everyone was rushing towards more and more extreme styles of thrash, but on this record, the band is still dwelling in the realms of Bay Area bounce with a slightly more aggressive rhythmic presence. The bigger problem than the softness, though, is a distinct lack of memorability in the songwriting. Partly a problem of production but more an issue of songwriting, the riffs tend to sound generic and uninspired, not delivered in an aggressive enough manner to stand out in that regard but not written well enough to really stick out in your brain.
It's obvious at this point that Destruction was leaning towards a more technically inspired direction Annihilator is a subtle undercurrent to many of these songs, but this just makes for music which sounds like a fourth-rate Hellwitch. The solos are keening and the riffing is more complicated than usual, but it doesn't do much but make for clumsy passages which don't really go anywhere.
You can see the symptoms of this in the drumming, which is forced into directionless, static patterns due to the self-indulgent riffing style: listen to just how long the percussion section is forced to do basically nothing over the course of "Dissatisfied Existence," in particular the section before the dueling solos. It's pretty painful to listen to. For the most part, this isn't openly bad so much as misdirected and kind of generic.
Oddly enough, I tend to prefer Destruction's material from and later to their more "classic" works; it feels as though they caught up significantly and stack up pretty well against still-running thrash bands of a similar age.
I've always held Destruction's album Release from Agony as a clunky elder sibling to the masterful Malleus Maleficarum by Pestilence. Both were produced by Kalle Trappe, and both have this extremely surgical sound to them which makes them stand out in a unique strata, even among the increasing wave of technical thrash present in the later 80s. In fact, this record is so ambitious and unapproachable to the average thrash fan that it probably did more harm than good to the band, less concerned with breakout hits like a "Mad Butcher" or "Curse the Gods" and more about the level of clinical extremity to which the band could impinge themselves.
They weren't alone in this, as the releases from Kreator Terrible Certainty and Sodom Persecution Mania , the other thirds of the Big Three also exhibited an increase in the respective bands' artistic proficiency and prowess, and outfits like Mekong Delta were also arriving around the time.
But Destruction evoked something here that is quite unique and difficult to penetrate, with walls of precision thrash punch riffing played at high speeds, and dominant, classical shredding that most thrash bands shied away from.
They were no strangers to musical talent, as was obvious from the wealth of notation vomited forth on Eternal Devastation or the Mad Butcher EP, but here it is at its most blocky and unchecked, to the point at which it hasn't even been reproduced by this very band since. Release from Agony is a punishing presence, and a harrowing trip through a malpractice ward, late at night, beneath some city building, where no passersby can hear the victims' cries.
Schizoid, frenzied rhythms writhe along before the savage, unforgettable sneering of the front man, your tour guide through this Teutonic lobotomy. The cover art is striking not only for its surreal, human exaggeration, but because that is EXACTLY what you will turn into after you've heard the music.
The epic intro piece "Beyond Eternity" visits the threshold of neo-classical shredding over a brooding but wondrous ambiance, all to soon parting for the spiral descent into madness that is the album's title track, ripe with thundering, mute-heavy six string violence, and swift bursts of melodic delusion, climaxing in the obvious but firm chorus.
The leads beyond are as demented as they are traditional, and you'll find your attentions bouncing between them as your mind splits vertically into its separate halves. If I ever want to attract attention, it won't be for your affection I don't know what I really want in my life and I don't remember whom I once believed' "Sign of Fear" is the closest the album has to an 'epic', nearing 7 minutes in length, and slowly transgressing itself with a swell of muddied synthesizer or a flighty acoustic passage, to culminate in a grooving madness around that is as sure to drive the last shreds of sanity from you, with its precise, winding streams of muted hostility and Schmier's near whispered ministrations, which I'm sorry to say, will NOT mend the wounds.
The song is sick, and should be made illegal! Other striking numbers here include "Unconscious Ruins", which is a desperate rager, yet startlingly morose, coming very close to a classical orchestration made pure thrash.
The closer, "Survive to Die" is nearly a manic and choppy as "Incriminated", though the way the band explodes into a micro-cover of the swing classic "In the Mood" almost through me out of the beams of the album's paralyzing stare.
Like waking up from a nightmare. In fact, if you don't immediately replay the album, that is likely what has just occurred. I mentioned a comparison to Malleus Maleficarum earlier because it is apt, and I do feel like this album is sort of a 'proving ground' for that one, a testing of the Kalle Trappe waters, though the two bands are not alike vocally and separated by an obvious national border.
The Pestilence effort is far superior in most ways, with unbelievably catchy songs, but Release from Agony does function on a more dense and disturbing level. It requires a little more patience and comprehension than the Germans' earlier output like the crude Sentence of Death or Eternal Overkill, so it may not have that much appeal if you're just out for some shit kicking street thrash. This album is also a little under-produced.
I feel like the tones get garbled and disjointed, as in a cerebral vortex, and it's not the best sounding of their pre-reunion catalog. Once in awhile, the bassist becomes lost beneath the twisting double helix of Harry and Mike, but not so for his vocals.
Those gripes aside, its a mesmerizing and often haunting album, more technically inclined than the fare the band was usually known for, and certainly belongs mentioned in the same breath as other European headfucks like Deception Ignored, Punishment for Decadence, or The Music of Erich Zann. Destruction are arguably one of the most overlooked thrash metal bands.
The last of the big 3 German trio of "tuetonic" thrash metal, along with Kreator and Sodom, Destruction probably achived the least amount of popularity and recognition. This could have been because the band really had a only a few "classic" albums with Release From Agony being one of them. Destructions lack of recognition is really quite a shame because Release From Agony is one hell of an album. Release From Agony is the bands first album as a four piece with the addition of guitarist Harry Wilkens.
Having a second guitarist gave this album a significant difference for this album compared to the first two records, Sentenced to Death and Eternal Devastation. Release From Agony features a lot of solos and some traditional trade offs between Wilkens and longtime Destruction guitarist Mike Sifringer. Standout trade off soloing can be heard on "Dissatisfied Existance", my personal favorite track on the album. The following track, "Sign of Fear" features some flamencco guitar work, something new for Destruction.
The remaining tracks have a lot of really good soloing as well. The rhythm sections are really good too. Each track has a lot of fast and killer riffs with the title track being a Destruction classic. Schmier provides both vocals and bass parts.
Schmiers vocals are both understandable and haunting. I think he has one of the most unique voices in all of thrash, maybe even extreme metal. While singing in his mid pitched voice, he also hits some high falsetto screams. The final line on "Sign of Fear" is breathtaking. The bass parts are really good too.
I really like it when an album has very noticeable bass. When I say noticeable I don't mean the bassist showing off chops, I mean the bass tracks aren't hidden behind the guitars. Schmier is very audible and still pulls out some good lines as well. Drummer Oliver Kaiser is another thrash great behind the kit. He is one of the many thrash drummers who help make thrash my favorite metal genre.
For the songwriting, Release From Agony features some of the bands finest material. After the short instrumental opener, the album gives out three Destruction classics. The title track and "Sign of Fear" have been on the bands regular setlists since the albums release.
All the other tracks are great as well with "Dissatisfied Existance" and "Unconcious Ruins" being some of the better tunes. And as a little last note, the final track, "Survive To Die" ends with a little goofy outro after the final chorus, similar to how "Mad Butcher" ended with the Pink Panther theme song on the famous EP. Although Destruction hasn't had another classic album since this, Release From Agony will always one of the many thrash classics that emmerged from the 80s.
Get this along with their first two albums and EPs to add to your thrash collection. Release From Agony can be seen as the most overlooked album by Destruction. This is the case for Destruction too, as I said. Maybe, after very influential releases back in the middle of the 80s, it was difficult for this one to emerge from the mud and conquer a good position. Anyway, this album should be also remembered for being the last one with Schmier in the line-up before the new millennium reunion.
Objectively, this album is very good and surely can compete with the same levels of its precursors because has inside few little gems that worth a mention.
Destruction here are awesome because they achieve the goal of creating a well balanced song. The galloping, total mosh tempo and riffs are perfectly mixed with a catchy and more melodic refrain. As always, Schmier is very good at the vocals with his typical timbre that makes him immediately recognizable. Even during the verses, the tempo is intense and the riffs are always numerous and in fast succession.
The guitars are the ones that acquired more power from the production. The structure of the riffs is more complex but never boring, because always quite schizophrenic and catchy at the same time.
The solos follow the melodic patterns. There are sudden speed parts by the middle to increase the violence. The stop and go with a fast restart is awesome. The guitars solos in this song are the best of the entire album for quantity and quality. By the way, this song is less impulsive during the refrain to accelerate with the verses and the instrumental parts. I think that any thrash metal fan should at least listen to it.
Really, Destruction here are always great and they can prove it if you give Release From Agony a change. It deserves it. This album is in my opinion the greatest thrash metal record recorded by a band not called Metallica. Though a metal classic in it's own right, the fact that it is not listed in most lists of the greatest albums of the s is a sin. This album should be in the collection of any person for whom headbanging can be considered their primary religion.
Embodying the phrase "all killer, no filler", this album will tear through your metal soul from start to finish, from the first strains of the dreamy Beyond Eternity to the candid rendition of the swing classic "In the Mood" that wraps up the end of Survive to Die.
These tracks and everything in between are the stuff of legend, with twisted, bonecrushing riffs and a ferocious vocal approach by Schmier. Destruction also showcases an insightful lyrical style uncommon to German bands, highlighted by Incriminated, an intense song about the difficulties of being a German citizen dealing with the haunting legacy of Germany's World War II dealings.
The guitar leads do the job, though you won't hear any of the neo-classical needling that was the popular style in this era. This is no knock on the guitarwork, as start to finish it will hold the listener's attention and make you want to reach for the nearest Flying V and shred away. Release from Agony is a fondly remembered and still enjoyable album, but does not get anywhere near the accolades it deserves.
It is still a testament to heavy metal. If this album were released today in , it would sound just as strong as it did at it's release. I could praise this album all day, but I don't wish to interrupt your leaving for the record store and purchasing it. This is one hell of an impressive album.
Everything is clearly defined and production is great, every instrument can be heard perfectly making for some of Germany's best thrash ever.
Destruction's riff master Mike goes on full gear here, so there is about 15 riffs a song!
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