Metal album reviewer Martin Popoff, in his book 'The Collectors Guide To Heavy Metal' commented on this album, "...big things were predicted for these polished purveyors of speed", yet ending his review with, "...I can't shake the Exodus curse that caused me to visit the band only sparsely despite such evidently advanced product", and Martin, I couldn't agree more. The debut record 'Bonded By Blood' was a pretty furious thrasher, but this follow up, seeing Steve Souza take up the vocal duties, remains one of those records I just can't get my teeth into, knowing full well that by this time Metallica, Anthrax, Megadeth and Slayer had released classic thrash records, and Exodus were simply below par for me. Musically you can't really fault their style of Bay Area thrash, well accomplished, the guitars of Hunolt and Holt certainly take the fury up a notch, but it just lacks either that real class in the song structures or nihilistic aggression. Anthrax had the chug, Metallica were already writing epics, Megadeth had the tight musicianship and Slayer just destroyed, but upon hearing tracks such 'Parasite', and 'Seeds Of Hate' I can't help but feel that here was a band destined for the second division of the thrash league, albeit near the top, but if ever getting promoted to the major league were still vulnerable for the drop. 'Pleasures...' is probably my favourite Exodus album, I mean, it's not easy within the genre to come up with memorable choruses, Exodus have that ability in abundance, but I guess the competition was just too hot at the time for the band to flourish. Pretty dodgy cover too guys.
6.5/10
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