Tankard - R.I.B
Nuclear Blast
Thrash Metal
10 songs (40:06)
Release year: 2014
Tankard, Nuclear Blast
Reviewed by Thomas

I can’t believe it’s been six years and three albums since Tankard released arguably their best album of the 00’s. The teutonic Thirst had them move slightly away from their default, and it worked out magnificently. Unfortunately, they were never able to follow it up, and I admittedly lost interest in one of my favorite thrash metal bands after the blandness that was Vol(l)lume 14. However hard they fell after Thirst, A Girl Called Cerveza somewhat straightened things out and brought their edge back. Thus, the natural progression of things suggests that R.I.B looks to have people throw horns with one hand and clutch a bottle of booze in the other expecting the party to be back on.

Maybe it’s just the fact that I haven’t listened properly to Tankard for a couple of years, but however much praise A Girl Called Cerveza got, I find this to be better in general. Gerre bites harder, Gutjahrs guitars oozes aggression, while Thorwarth and Zissel viciously thunders mercilessly forward with hammering rhythm-work. Violent as ever, songs like War Cry and Fooled by Your Guts will break your face with an empty (of course) beer bottle, while the title-track and the chorus of Hope Can Die will have you banging your head and singing along. That said, the absolute highlight on this album is Enemy of Order which trashes onwards in an almost a Kreator-esque manner. Brimming with thrash it combines spine-twisting pace, killer riffs and a fresh kind of ruthlessness not very present throughout the rest of this album.

Barring a the abovementioned killers, a few of the tunes fall flat on their face, not being bad, but just… uninteresting. This album could do well without songs like Riders of the Doom and No One Hit Wonder in particular. Coming of as fillers they annoyinlgy breaking up the nice pace set for this album for a couple of minutes.

All in all, this is a solid outing mostly consisting of good to great songs although some fall in around average. If you like fun, sort of upbeat, ageless thrash metal and don’t mind the retarded lyrics, R.I.B should have a place on your playlist.

Killing Songs :
War Cry, Fooled By Your Guts, R.I.B, Enemy of Order
Thomas quoted 79 / 100
Other albums by Tankard that we have reviewed:
Tankard - A Girl Called Cerveza reviewed by Milan and quoted 79 / 100
Tankard - Chemical Invasion reviewed by Thomas and quoted CLASSIC
Tankard - Vol(l)ume 14 reviewed by Thomas and quoted 84 / 100
Tankard - Zombie Attack reviewed by Charles and quoted 86 / 100
Tankard - B-Day reviewed by Thomas and quoted 87 / 100
To see all 10 reviews click here
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There are 2 replies to this review. Last one on Thu Oct 30, 2014 8:30 am
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