Band:	Artillery
Album:	My Blood
Style:	Thrash metal
Release date:	March 2011

01. Mi Sangre (The Blood Song)
02. Monster
03. Dark Days
04. Death Is An Illusion
05. Ain't Giving In
06. Prelude To Madness
07. Thrasher
08. Warrior Blood
09. Concealed In The Dark
10. End Of Eternity
11. The Great
12. The Almighty [2011 version][Japanese bonus]
13. Show Your Hate [2011 version][digipak bonus]
14. Eternal War [2011 version][digipak bonus]

Artillery is one of those classic second/third-tier 80's thrash bands that took the better part of nearly two decades off ('99's B.A.C.K. is their only release between 1990 and 2009), before re-launching with the thrash-revival movement and pumping out some albums.

My Blood kicks off on all cylinders, with "Mi Sangre" (The Blood Song) , a blazing track with a middle-Eastern sound in the vein of the By Inheritance openers "7:00 From Tashkent/Khomaniac". The momentum carries forward the next couple songs, "Monster" and "Dark Days". It's a rapid-fire thrash assault, excellent production, driving beat, and lots of blazing solos.

By the time they hit the 5th track, they are starting to follow the trajectory that Heathen did with their latest. "Ain't Giving In" just felt cheesy. The song was decent, the ballady bits lost some of the momentum of the opening tracks and the lyrics just had me rolling my eyes. It sounded a bit like someone tried to work some of Charlie Sheen's more lucid ranting into a thrash anthem.

"I ain't giving in/to all your goddamn rules/I'm gonna (duh) win/ I don't listen to fools"

Swell, seeing as they don't listen to fools, I'm sure they won't lose sleep over the rest of the review.

The remainder of the album just doesn't quite hold up to the blazing tracks that opened it. The music is still pretty good, fast, with lots of solos just begging for metalheads to air guitar along with. They just don't seem to be quite as strong as Side 1.

And the lyrics seems to wander too close to Manowar territory? or for old school wrestling fans, like one of Ultimate Warrior's tangents. Climbing mountains alone and fighting like lions, side-by-side before crawling into Satan's armpit (no shit) in an effort to end the world.

I guess lyrics don't really matter for the most part. I generally don't look to metal bands for deep philosophy or anything, but when the vocalist sings as cleanly and clearly as Søren does, one but cannot help but consider them as part of the overall package. At least when black metal frontmen named after obscure Tolkien characters shriek about burrowing into Satan's armpit to exact vengeance for grade school slights, I'm at least oblivious to all but the basic spite of the message.

So all in all it's a fast-paced ripping affair that rages along at double time with technical riffs and fun solos. I enjoyed it well enough, but not quite as much as I did the 2010 releases by other 80's Thrash stalwarts Exodus, Heathen, or even their own 2009 release, When Death Comes.