Minotaur – God may Show you Mercy… We will Not
21 years since their debut full-length, Germany’s Minotaur sound like they haven’t aged a bit, still churning out a cleaned up German thrash attack ala Kreator, sans the bestial fuzz of Kreator’s early masterworks. In fact, this band undoubtedly owes a lot of their early popularity to said fellow countrymen, for fans spill over their interest to check out other bands of the same ilk. The Kreator and Destruction influence runs a bit too deep in this music. Andreas Richwien sounds nearly exact to a young Mille (Terrible Certainty Era), and Minotaur’s style revolves around note based riffs, albeit a touch more related to Destruction than Kreator stylistically, but at the end of the day it doesn’t matter. Minotaur’s musical intentions are impure when it comes to originality. I applaud the dedication to the thrash faith and the songs are just the right amount of sloppy and structurally confused (in a good way) to lead one to believe that “God may Show you Mercy… We will Not” could have come out in ‘84/’85. But… it didn’t! Minotaur’s emphasis on a clean production rolled off all the grit that would have allowed the much needed dose of intensity to empower the busy guitar work and blastless beats. We’ve heard it before… sometimes better, sometimes worse. Such a middle of the road existence makes a release such as this really tough to fully embrace. If you’re a thrash purist, Minotaur wants to sell you something safe. I guess I really needed more of a bite in the production and a bit more inventiveness when it comes to songs and overall style. Hey… Mille’s vocals have been fried for ages… Kreator really needs to give Andreas a call. –Marty
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