Exodus - The Atrocity Exhibition...Exhibit A
With The Atrocity Exhibition…Exhibit A (Nuclear Blast, 2007), Exodus continues a decades-long streak of spectacularly ugly album covers. (Scroll down here for my top 5 ugliest ones.) Like on 2004’s Tempo of the Damned, Nuclear Blast has covered up the actual artwork (pictured here) with a more tasteful slipcase. It’s almost comforting how consistently bad Exodus’ artwork is.
Riot ActThe Garden of Bleeding
This actually factors into the gestalt of Exodus. The recurring question these days is if the band deserves the name, since only one original member, Gary Holt, remains. Heathen’s Lee Altus replaced Rick Hunolt in 2005 to good effect. Bassist Jack Gibson has been onboard for some time, and original drummer Tom Hunting is back. I was on the fence about new vocalist Rob Dukes on 2005’s Shovel Headed Kill Machine, but this record has made up my mind: his faceless yell is neither positive nor negative.
The lineup almost doesn’t matter, though, as Holt drives Exodus. Quite simply, he’s a big, bad riffing machine. He’s also writing incredibly long, exciting epics; four tracks top eight minutes in length, and the title track weighs in at 10:32. Holt whips out godlike riff after godlike riff, with no end in sight. He’s out-riffing his ’80s colleagues – Metallica, Megadeth, Anthrax, Slayer – but perhaps Testament can challenge him this year.
Except for one song, Holt wrote all the lyrics. In recent years, he’s matured towards more topical themes, namely anti-Christianity and anti-war. Dukes’ anti-Islam contribution, “Children of a Worthless God,” is perhaps dissonant (and reminiscent of Juan Urteaga’s borderline racism in Vile), but could be reconciled with Holt’s anti-religion stance. A nod to lighter times, though, comes in a hidden track, a hilarious bluegrass version of “Bonded by Blood.”
Andy Sneap delivers his usual technically flawless but overly compressed audio pancake. Tom Hunting’s personality has been click-tracked away, but this record is first and foremost about Holt. Exhibit A isn’t the best post-comeback Exodus record (that would be Tempo of the Damned), but it blows away every “retro thrash” trendhopper I’ve heard. Bring on Exhibit B!
Exhibit A is available at CM Distro, Relapse, and The End.
