Album Review: Exhorder – Mourn The Southern Skies

Face-melting things come to those who wait. That’s the message on this long, long overdue third album from NOLA thrash legends Exhorder. After their 1994 split and an abortive 2008-2011 reunion that ended with the untimely death of bassist Frankie Sparcello, Mourn The Southern Skies is a back-to-basics return that’s an absolutely furious thrash attack.

Marinated in two and a half decades of quashed dreams and frustration, the urgency here is through the roof, and the underlying energy has fermented to whole new levels of nastiness. Songs like My Time and Beware The Wolf snarl out of the speakers with a take-no-prisoners ruthlessness, while the sludgy grooves of Yesterday’s Bones and The Arms Of Man’s zombified lumber keep the Pantera comparisons that have always followed this band alive. By the epically sludgy title-track, it’s clear this ain’t no nostalgia trip. Behold, instead, the awakening of a sleeping giant.

Verdict: 4/5