Delirium Tremens - Thrashing Warthogs

DELIRIUM TREMENS - Thrashing Warthogs (MERCILESS Productions - CD 2004)

And yet again I am experiencing a “return to the past” sort of, which means coming back to albums, which I have not heard in many years. So, lately I started to play “Thrashing Warthogs” album from German thrashers Delirium Tremens and it’s an album, which I knew ever since I got a copy of it back in 2004… I did enjoy it a lot back then, I remember even making interview with this band for one of the numbers of my fanzine, but later on I completely forgot about their existence. And only recently, when going through some my old boxes I found this CD and played “Thrashing Warthogs” again. And definitely I can say that ten years later I still enjoy the music of Delirium Tremens. This is just killer thrash metal!

Skipping all the “lack of originality” or other bullshit, for me personally “Thrashing Warthogs” holds quite few strong points. First is obviously the killer music, played in furious, aggressive old school thrash metal. Secondly it’s the fact that this band sounds like a classic Teutonic thrash, rather than the US thrash – and I was always more a fan of the European (read: German) bands rather than those big US stars (with only two or three exceptions). Thirdly, this album came few years before this funny thrash revival happened, mainly in the USA. I did not like 99% of those “I wanna sound like Exodus” bands that kids formed in mid / late 00’s and who suddenly got signed also by some bigger labels (funny that hardly any of these bands still exists nowadays haha – that says a lot about how weak was this trend). And Delirium Tremens was surely not a fashionable affair. They came up with “Thrashing Warthogs” in 2004, for a respected underground label Merciless Records and it was never meant to do anything more than cause some neck aches (after the headbanging it definitely force you to perform) and hangovers (as beer is a great accompany to this music) among dedicated maniacs.

Some people may call this album “infantile” and “trivial”, I can understand such opinions. The image is so typical (???), with leather, denim jackets, millions of patches, etc. The artwork is just bad (see yourself) and the German helmet surely makes some controversy. And the music, along the classic thrash influences, from bands such as Destruction, Darkness, Cruel Force and Vendetta, has that weird LA metal touch to it, what sounds just odd. And the “Paradise City” cover will make you laugh. But damn, this album is exactly about it – having beers, fun and banging the head while listening to some aggressive tunes. If this is a pastiche or something more serious – I simply don’t care, as it’s just fun to listen to. “Thrashing Warthogs” is filled with clichés, even the lyrics are banal to the bone (“Feel the heat in my blood, raped by priest, I’m Satan's slut Evil dicks will stretch my cunt, Satan’s coming up for hunt… Worship Satan, rock’n’roll. Kill the humans and fuck them all…” haha!), but that’s what it is. Even the release sheet says it clearly: tune up the volume, take a beer, fuck a bitch haha! I don’t need to say more than that. But it’s really cool album, with plenty of good songs, nice riffs, decent vocalist and good production value.

“Thrashing Warthogs” is actually a second album from Delirium Tremens. The first one (“Violent Mosh Ground”) was released in 1999, but I never had a chance to hear it. After the release of “Thrashing Warthogs” the band did an EP two years later and then went silent, until “Read My Fist” came out in 2014. And surely I must find this new album also, as Delirium Tremens is among the best newer German thrash bands, along such Hellish Crossfire and Nocturnal. If you like those bands, you’ll also love “Thrashing Warthogs”, even though it has more of a thrash meets rock ‘n’ roll feeling.

Standout tracks: “Worship Satan”, “Follow Us If You Want to Die”

Final rate: 70/100