Plague Years – All Will Suffer

Plague Years – All Will Suffer (EP)
Release Date: 8th July 2022
Label: MNRK Heavy 
Genre: Thrash Crossover, Death Metal, Hardcore.
FFO: Kreator, Power Trip, Slayer, Enforced, Enforced.
Review By: Rick Farley

These Detroit, Michigan’s boys and crossover thrash maniacs Plague Years sound like a hornet’s nest that was lit on fire, with a thousand pissed off burning insect bodies stinging the living fuck out of you all at once. A complete wave of death, all coming at you in one fail swoop. Born in twenty sixteen, but it was a well-received self-released EP in twenty seventeen and a personal shoutout on Instagram from the man himself, Trevor Strnad (RIP) really started kicking things off for these Motor City thrashers. Through Joel Grind they got hooked up with the manager of Toxic Holocaust who were seeking a new label and were pitched to MNRK right alongside them. Needless to say, the label loved them and here we are. After twenty twenties’ brutal beatdown of a record Circle of Darkness, Plague Years are unleashing sonic malice on their vicious new EP All Will Suffer. 

Within seconds of muscular EP opener Make you Mortal, vocalist Tim Engelhardt, guitarist Eric Lauder, bassist Rian Staber and drummer Mike Jurysta set the levels to eleven and start strong arming your entire neighbourhood with browbeating heaviness and metallic crunchy tones. You can hear the harsh urban decay of Detroit’s landscape in the band’s music, the sounds coming out of the speakers carries the same blue collar, don’t fuck with us, Detroit vs. everybody spirit that makes this city so durable. At every turn, Plague Years is looking for a fight, punching you in the mouth with hardcore assault and thrash metal intensity. A full-on display of direct in your face Slayer-iffic riffs, pounding beatdown style drums and nasty breakdown crunchiness. The back to the basics of just punishing the listener with constant hammering between extremely heavy grooving riffs and straight up fast thrashiness will never get old. 

Pristine sounding cymbals hits, double bass, and hi hat wide open, album closer Cursed starts with a chunky gallop that impossible not to headbang to, with an abrupt stop into a fast picked, thrash metal circle pit inducing verse, it ensures live show violence. Tim bellows out his abrasive shouty vocals with a bludgeoning tonality and frenzied cadence. The song takes a turn for a beatdown style grooving riff with some more galloping for good measure, it goes into a traditional metal style solo that’s not just disjointed notes and frequent whammy use that’s typical of the genre. The solo tastefully bombs a harmonic into the same neck breaking crunchy chug from prior. The song ends with an almost droning crunchy riff and eerie guitar harmony overtop. 

At four songs and seventeen minutes, the production is top-notch, the bass is beefy and full sounding. The guitars are metallic and edgy but maintain a thick warmness for maximum carnage. The drums sound is a blast of thunderous percussion with great clarity. Eric Lauder tracked the guitars, bass, and vocals while Sean O’Shaughnessy engineered the drums. Roger Camero handled mixing and Erol Ulug the mastering. Excellent job all around. 

Honestly, it’s not very often that an EP really gets me excited, most are experimental, cover songs or unreleased music, but this feels like a mini blitzkrieg of bigger beastlier things to come. A warning of serious intent for future hostility, and I fucking cannot wait. A solidly built foundation of crossover thrash that I just could not stop listening too. Some of the heaviest songs Plague Years has released yet. This EP delivers the goods and then some.

(4 / 5)