EXODUS The Atrocity Exhibition-Exhibit A CD (2007)

By 2007, thrash metal had spent a decade being politely ignored by mainstream rock press, which meant the bands who stuck around were doing it because they meant it. EXODUS meant it harder than most. The Atrocity Exhibition, Exhibit A is a late-career statement from one of the Bay Area's founding brutalists, and it sounds like a band with something to prove.

Rob Dukes had been in the vocalist seat for a couple of years by this point, and the record reflects a band recalibrating without softening. Gary Holt's riff construction is as precise and vicious as anything from the classic era. Tracks like The Atrocity Exhibition and Funeral Hymn clock in at lengths that would feel indulgent from lesser bands, but EXODUS fill them. This is the kind of thrash that influenced the entire dark metal and extreme music underground, from grunge's anger through to contemporary industrial and blackened metal crossover scenes. It doesn't negotiate.

Full length CD, 2007 release. USA thrash metal.

Fans of: Testament, Kreator, Metallica, Slayer, Overkill