Flotsam And Jetsam - 'The End Of Chaos' Album Review

Tracklist:

1. Prisoner Of Time

2. Control

3. Recover

4. Prepare For Chaos

5. Slowly Insane

6. Architects Of Hate

7. Demolition Man

8. Unwelcome Surprise

9. Snake Eye

10. Survive

11. Good Or Bad

12. The End

'The End Of Chaos' feels very much like Flotsam And Jetsam have hit their stride, this is their style, this is their sound, and as I've said before, they're bloody great at doing this stuff. There are so many excellent Thrash riffs on this album, electric performances from all the band, this is not an album that goes for a mellow break at any stage, the guitar solos are incredibly well played, almost shred-guitar masterclasses in and of themselves. Lyrically I must admit that I struggled, the band seem to still be singing about all those typical 80's Thrash lyrical ideas, chaos, the beast, terror, pain, that feeling of being on the verge of letting out a deep and well cultivated rage, some cringey moments aside there's nothing fundamentally wrong with the lyrics here, but it feels like there's no new ground being explored and I found myself unable to feel connected with the words.

Having now heard the rest of 'The End Of Chaos', "Demolition Man" itself is a great choice as a single, it's very representative of the rest of the album as a whole, there's never a sense of time to relax during this album, it's got pace, power and exceptional playing and singing throughout.

Why should this album's 80's Thrash pedigree be a problem though? 80's Pop icons are still popular and still playing exactly the same songs they played back then.

Flotsam And Jetsam have never stopped producing new albums, at least they're writing new music albeit perhaps to my ears, very much in the same vein, but there's certainly nothing wrong with playing to your strengths. Flotsam And Jetsam are incredibly good at what they do, to the point that their capacity to play this way will be enough for many to laud this album as exceptional work. There's certainly a lot of work gone into this album, it's performed perfectly and sounds absolutely pristine.

This album is so well made it's hard to be too disappointed, I enjoyed it immensely on first listen. Though my love for it has somewhat decreased with further listens. So even though it's not making the playlist, it's still one hell of an example of how 80's Thrash can still be a thing more than twenty years later.