Picture this: you’re standing in the middle of a junkyard, and pick up a power saw. It’s not in too bad of shape, some rust coating the blade, but it looks like it might function. You just happen to have a charged battery with you, so you shove it into the saw and turn the machine on. The blade starts spinning, throwing off sparks and dust, and filling the air with a screeching, buzzing growl. Now imagine learning how to play a thrash song with your newfound instrument, and you’ll have a good idea of the sound and spirit of Violent Fate, the debut of New York-based thrash metal outfit Unatural Desaster.

For self-released project, the production on Violent Fate is quite well done. The balance is good; the drums don’t take over, as they can in such circumstances. The guitar tone is dirty, but given that the music itself is hardly refined, it generally adds to rather than detracts from the experience. The only exception is the solos, which occasionally have a slight grating screech that makes my back teeth itch a little. There’s not much low end, though again, given that thrash isn’t generally known for thundering bass, it’s not as big a liability as it could be. The guitars are slightly muddy at times, which is unfortunate; the riffing is solid, and it could only benefit from being able to be heard.

Apart from the production, Violent Fate is a solid album. The riffing is nothing new or innovative, mostly short, catchy, easy-to-digest nuggets of thrash. The drumming is the same, tight and competent, but not earth-shattering. Vocalist Peter Aiello has a deep, rough delivery, a hybrid thrash rasp and death growl that adds heft and power to the album, transcending the raw production. The lyrics deal with historical or political events, which also adds an edge to the album

Overall, Violent Fate has two speeds: pretty fast and fast. There’s not a lot of playing around with tempo changes; a song that starts fast usually stays that way. The opener, Stalinisticism, seems to be the fastest; the full-stereo dirty buzzsaw intro works nicely to begin things, although the effect is diminished in the longer, yet very similar, intro to TCBS. Speaking of intros, things get downright weird on Faith Terminated; although the stripped-down riffing under a vocal sample works well musically, especially as a break in the middle of the album, part of the sample is what sounds like one of the band members doing an “Indian war cry,” that now-terribly-politically-incorrect sound made by clapping one’s had rapidly over one’s open mouth while making a sustained whooping noise. Unfortunately, I don’t have full lyrics for the album, so I can’t speculate as to how effective the noise is; however, given how difficult it is to understand all the lyrics, it really doesn’t add much except an element of surreality.

Unatural Desaster show a lot of promise. They’re solid players and songwriters, clearly able to deliver a competent, if not mind-bogglingly original, album. I look forward to hearing more from these guys.