Metal Debate Album Review - Asylum (Atrophy)

The Great Metal Debate Podcast

Welcome back metal heads to a new episode of The Great Metal Debate podcast. Today will be looking at the third full-length studio release from the Tuscan, Arizona based thrash metal band known as Atrophy. The album Asylum has been long awaited by fans. Thanks to a side link on YouTube, the first song I heard was titled "High Anxiety" and it honestly blew me away with the same type of grooviness as Mezzrow. Not quite what you would call melodic thrash metal, but definitely had its standout riffs which ultimately made me want to review this. After finding out that it's another three decade long hiatus type of band, I thought, there's no way in hell I'm not reviewing this. Allow me to state that there are absolutely no skipable tracks on this album and "Punishment For All" is a punishing opening track to the album. I mean that in the way that it's every bit as badass as the album cover. When you see the giant skeleton like jester towering over the old abandoned asylum a with a graveyard out front, you know you can expect the headbang inducing thrash riffs. When you begin head banging, you'll suddenly want to shotgun a tall beer and dive straight into a mosh pit. Lets jump on over to the song "Seeds of Sorrow". The drums on this record sound amazing but the band didn't have a drummer who is in the band during the recording last year. Instead they had a personal friend of theirs by the name of Jonas Schultz who was hired for the recording gig. Either way, Jonas did an incredible job. On March 22nd, Atrophy announced the winner of their drumming auditions. So congratulations to Mr. Alex Bosson for winning your rightful place in the band. Mark Coglan and Nathan Montalvo continue to deliver those tasty guitar riffs which can be further analyzed in the entire runtime but for now we'll focus on them being the reason "Distortion" is among one of my favorites. Thrash metal has never been one of my go-to genres but I have a huge respect for it. As I've mentioned before in a previous review, I have my favorites, but I can always appreciate them taking traditional heavy metal and then making it 100x heavier. Most thrash metal doesn't even rely on as many blast beats as other bands because the main focus comes from the riffs. The song "American Dream" features Kragen Lum who is the guitarist of Heathen. "Close My Eyes" is a track that begins with a bit of a rock ballad that doesn't overstay its welcome. In fact, it reminds me of something you would've heard on the Allison Hell album by Annihilator but with a slight mimic of Milli's voice from Kreator. Despite its slow start, it quickly kicks into gear for yet another thrash metal banger. When I looked up the bass player for this record, I was happy to learn that it was none other than Josh Gibbs. He has previously worked with notable bands like Solstice and Malevolent Creation as well as many others. He showcases his talent on every song but in particular he's one of the reasons why a song like "The Apostle" is such a ripper. "Five Minutes 'Til Suicide" is an epic closing track which is the longest song on the album, surpassing the length of "Close My Eyes" by only 4 seconds. So how do I feel about a thrash metal record that is just under 2 weeks shy of 34 years apart from their previous record? I'd say its a whole hell of a lot better than a lot of bands who wait over a decade to finally drop new music.This is an outstanding thrash metal release for 2024 and I'm going to rate Asylum by Atrophy a solid 7.5/10.