Sentinel Beast - Depths Of Death (1986)

Here's an album that sprints from the traps and tears at the throat. The aggressively named Sentinal Beast offer one of metal's greatest album titles and thankfully too, a batch of ferocious songs to match. This is fiery thrash, slightly let down by the drowned out and tepid sounding vocals, but this is such a basement record it deserves the rating I've given it. The maniacal title track is guitar overload whilst 'Dogs Of War' begins with sinister fashion as the twiddling guitar punctures the slow riff but like everything else on this opus it soon speeds up for a dose of thrash metal mayhem. The bass plod of 'Corpse' hints at a melody, made all the more authentic by the doom-laden riff but you know where its going, made all the eatery by that rather irritating vocal warble. Some may argue that there's a sleazy edge to proceedings, but again the vocal sneer is responsible for that, but overall it's a half-decent thrasher that fails to shift from the mediocre. 6/10