Violent Definition is thrash metal quartet from Athens, Greece. The band is comprised of; IronBeast (vocals), Nick P. (guitars), Chris Z. (bass) and Maelstrom (drums). They have been making their brand of thrash noise since 2008, but it took them ten years to get their debut album Life Sentence released. Six years since the release of Life Sentence, the band released their sophomore full-length entitled Progressive Obsoletion. Album, which consists of nine tracks, has been released by I Hate Records.

People who have had the pleasure of listening to their debut is already familiar with their sound, but for new readers I can tell that we are dealing with old-school, dirty, 80s retro thrash metal here. First thing noteworthy, compared to its predecessor, is the song-writing and the compositions that have reached much higher level.

Tracklist:

1. Into Trepidation
2. Justified Ferocity
3. The Last Grain In Your Hourglass
4. Experimental Failure
5. Deceiving The Psychopompos
6. Progressive Obsoletion
7. Children Of God
8. Reprobate Misfits
9. Trampled (By The Foot)

Two stand-out songs for me gotta be; “The Last Grain in Your Hourglass” with its mid-tempo start, before menacing riffs, technical yet heavy drumming, vibrating bass lines and aggressive vocals take over. This song has very good flowing, and I particularly enjoyed how they created this song by building anticipation gradually before a total final assault. Another mind-blowing song is the one called “Children of God” (watch the video below) due to its merciless start of the song, but also because of galloping guitars riffs, fast and frantic pace of the song, even though it’s almost seven minutes of music, or should we say ‘pure and fast old-school thrash’.

The icing on the cake are IronBeast’s lyrics that are strongly socio-political and the the album itself is incredibly well-polished. Produced by the band & mixed and mastered at ‘Unreal Studio” by Alex Ketenjian.

By listening to these nine tracks on multiple occassions now, and still I feel as sonically attacked by the band. During 45 minutes one don’t have much time to breathe – as Progressive Obsoletion feels relentless, maniacal and uncompromising thrash assault with no break. It’s not groundbreaking or the most innovative record (that wasn’t their intention at all), but Progressive Obsoletion is powerful and pretty much reminiscent of the golden era of thrash metal. All I can say is that I am increasingly becoming more of a fan of these four gentlemen from Greece.

Especially recommended for fans of Razor, Exodus, Whiplash, Kreator, (early) Metallica and similar late 80s/early 90s thrash scene. For additional information on this second opus from Hellenic thrash metal act Violent Definition at https://violentdefinition.bandcamp.com/album/progressive-obsoletion