positive punk: CORONER

4.29.2022

CORONER

"punishment for decadence"

Year: 1988

Country: Switzerland

City: Zürich

Label: Sony

Format: CD, LP

Tracks: 10

Time: 38 min.

Genre: rock

Style: Punk Metal

Coroner is a Swiss technical thrash metal band from Zurich, Switzerland formed in 1983. They garnered relatively little attention outside of Europe. Coroner's music combines elements of thrash, progressive rock, jazz, and industrial metal with suitably gruff vocals. With their increasingly complex style of progressive rock-infused thrash, they are often labeled as "the Rush of thrash metal" by music critics. Coroner's sound then progressed and the production became more refined, resulting in the more progressive No More Color, Mental Vortex and Grin albums. Musically, Coroner evolved from a punk metal or crossover thrash band with gothic and classical overtones like Celtic Frost and Bathory into a technical-based band. Coroner's first album, R.I.P., was based on neo-classical lines and was technical and classically influenced. The second album, Punishment for Decadence, saw a progression into a more complex sound with a unison of bass and guitar. Tempo changes interspersed mid-paced sections and the odd slow passage between the hardcore punk passages started to emerge. Lyrically, Coroner began to write about themes such as politics and social issues.

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"no more color"

Year: 1989

Label: Sony

Format: CD, LP

Tracks: 8

Time: 50 min.

Genre: rock

Style: Thrash Metal

Good lord. I don't quite remember which albums in my collection were "random impulse purchases," but if I would have to rank them, this would have to be at the top. What a goddamn riff monster. It's so fucking good it makes Punishment For Decadence look like a letdown. Hell I still listen to Punishment For Decadance and mostly wonder why it wasn't as good as No More Color? Because progress. Progress is a good thing people. Bands should get BETTER, not worse over time. Progress works as a root musical description here as well because most metal critics like to praise this album for all the avant garde influences it introduces. I think that should be not so kindly redefined as "avant garde influences it lets slip past the radar" and as far as I'm concerned, that's how metal should ALWAYS work. Riffs and screams first, everything else second.

I'd like to say, I have tried. I have tried to deeply breakdown what exactly is going on here. But everytime I do the club bouncer better known as Tommy T Baron's fretboard grabs my ass by the belt loop and slams me against the sidewalk headfirst every single fucking time. Seriously, anyone who likes to claim technical music has no feeling has clearly never heard the main riff to No Need To Be Human. And that's a slow riff too! Slow song as a matter of fact, but will you will still rage and kill in the moshpit like Angel of Death or Strike of the Beast is being played at MDF (or whatever metal festival you tend to punt). This is definitely one of those songs where the song you are listening to at the moment is good you think to yourself, "Ok, that was too good, the next song HAS to be filler." Then it just comes in with a moment that it so deliciously psychotic it turns your brain inside out. That happens, well, six times throughout this album, as Last Entertainment....its certainly not a turkey by any stretch. It's probably a good thing that it's as relaxed by comparison with the end of the album because Why It Hurts was already a surgical strike climax to the whole thing. The album really has nowhere else to go aside from doing a Burning of Sodom but even that would seem a bit basic and passe here, particularly since this was the same year Altars of Madness was setting new standards in torture. There are some days where I'm only not sure whether Trey Azagthoth or Tommy T Baron should take home the guitar hero award for 1989. The guitar work on both albums is incredibly dynamic, lethal and complex.

No More Color is the ultimate evolution of the Celtic Frost sound that Coroner would start off with R.I.P.. This would be the greatest technical thrash achievement of all time if not for one Rust In Peace. This album should still hangeth it high with no shame, as such there are some peaks that can not be topped and one should beith proud of what they have accomplished. Sort of like how Dave Mustaine should quit whining that he didn't make as much money as Metallica. Whoa. Even I surprised myself with that one (*Review by Trooper Ed ).

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