THUNDERBLAST – Invaders From Another World

After a seven-year drought, Columbia’s Thunderblast is again firing their guns with Invaders From Another World. If you haven’t listened to their debut album, Warzone, or 2008’s demo, When Zombies Rise, Thunderblast plays pure ’80s Traditional Metal in both the European and American sense. Prime attention is given to heavy riffs that share utmost respect to the traditions and implement a melodic and catchy line of choruses. If you’re a fan of Rage, Paragon, Warrior, Accept, and early Destruction, you are bound to like this album.

However, the weakest link on this album was the production quality. Thuderblast’s sound is powerful and pumps the blood of the gods of Heavy Metal, and the guitars were crunchy and merciless along with a vocal cloud that was clearly heard. Nonetheless, the entire release was way too filled with bass … when the bass drum thundered; shrieks of too much volume tore the other channels a bit. Something most certainly should have been done in the mastering process in order to avoid this from happening.

Material-wise, Thunderblast attacked fearlessly with speed and heavy outputs of steel. Even though the riffs and song structures came back and forth to strike again and again, those familiarities were under the tight chains of the band’s vocalist Felipe Machado Franco, who shows his amazing talents in the front line. His voice pattern seemed rather similar to Rage’s Peavey Wagner and in a way slightly aligned with Destruction’s mighty Marcel Schmier. That profound vocal line coupled with melodic verses were played greatly by the band’s two axemen, who also displayed some cutting edge solos. The bass assembled a good line of hits too in a number of tracks such as: “Units Of Pain”, “Core Domain”, “Screams At Haunted Hill”, and “Horror At Outpost 10”.

Traditional Metal is by far the real thing that came out of the NWOBHM. With the mass subgenre that went forward into the later years, Thunderblast are certainly not the first to light and carry the blazing torch … yet their addition is a fine contribution to the continuance of a true Metal legacy.

Tracklist

1. Intro (We Are Not Alone)
2. Core Domain
3. Horror at Outpost 10
4. The Human Torch
5. Target Earth
6. Invaders from Another World
7. When Zombies Rise
8. Screams at Hunted Hill
9. Mutate
10. War of the Monsters
11. Lab from Hell
12. Units of Pain

Lineup

Felipe Machado Franco – Vocals
Germán Guerra – Guitars
Victor Mosquera – Guitars
German Rojas – Bass
Jaime Moreno – Drums