German thrash metal does not need any introduction, although it hasn’t scaled the commercial heights of the American thrash scene, it has often gone more aggressive and brutal than its transatlantic cousins. One such band keeping that old school thrash metal sound alive are Traitor who are back for the first time in four years with their latest album ‘Exiled to the Surface’.
When it comes to their music, Traitor are hardly going to suddenly change their sounds or parameters. Not on your life bud. What this band achieve here with ‘Exiled…’ is an album of violent thrash metal which sticks very much within the remit of everything that the band have already accomplished. This means that ‘Exiled…’ is a very safe album, its familiar, it’s like getting a big warm hug from 1988 and there is nothing wrong with that at all. From its off, tracks such as ‘Metroid’, ‘Zordrak’ and ‘Space Seed’ stick to their guns with Traitor having all the power of Kreator, Sodom and Destruction under their bullet belt; in fact, Tom Angelripper himself from Sodom makes an appearance on ‘Total Thrash’.
Yes, some of these tracks were already released on 2019’s ‘Decade of Revival’ compilation album and nobody needs ‘Careless Whisper’, let alone a thrash metal version of it and it wouldn’t be missed had it not been there, but ‘Exiled…’ accomplishes what it sets out to do and that is to deliver solid thrash metal the way it was meant to be played.
