DESTRUCTION Release From Agony CD (1988)

By 1988, Destruction had already helped drag thrash metal out of the garage and into something genuinely dangerous. Release From Agony was where they pushed further into technical territory, tightening the riffs and darkening the atmosphere without losing any of the aggression that made Sentence of Death a landmark.

This is peak Teutonic thrash, the kind that made the German scene a genuine counterweight to the Bay Area. Schmier, Sifringer and Shermann locked in and delivered one of the more underrated records in the genre, one that rewards close listening even if your neighbours absolutely will not. If your shelves already have Kreator and Sodom, this is the gap you didn't know you had.

CD pressing of the 1988 original. German thrash metal.

Fans of: Sodom, Dark Angel, Vio-lence, Overkill, Hirax