Exodus – Blood In, Blood Out

By Andrew Bansal

Earlier this year, San Francisco Bay Area thrash metal veterans Exodus announced a largely unexpected major lineup change, the return of vocalist Steve ‘Zetro’ Souza who previously fronted the band for two stints, 1986-93 and 2002-04. Zetro replaces Rob Dukes, who served as the Exodus vocalist for the past nearly 10 years, recorded four albums for them and toured the world delivering material from the band’s entire catalog to fans everywhere. ‘Old-school’ fans jumped in joy and unanimously welcomed back Zetro with open arms, but having enjoyed Dukes’ contributions to Exodus and being an admirer of what he brought to the band as a frontman, I remained skeptical of this switch and waited till I heard the entire album to decide whether I’m aboard the revivalist bandwagon.

Upon listening to the album in its entirety several times, it’s absolutely clear that these songs were already written before Zetro was brought back into the fold, and unfortunately that turns out to be the biggest negative aspect of the music on ‘Blood In, Blood Out’ which to me undoubtedly sounds like it was written to be fronted by Dukes, not Zetro. There is a massive disconnect between the vocal stylings of Zetro and the music composed for the album by guitarist and principal songwriter Gary Holt. All 11 tracks on this hour-long effort would have sounded infinitely better if sung by Dukes, and it makes me wonder whether there are any Dukes-fronted demo versions of some of these tracks buried somewhere in the Exodus vault because I would dearly love to listen to them.

I have nothing against Zetro musically or personally and there’s no denying that he made some great albums with Exodus in his previous stints with the band, but he sounds exactly the same in 2014 as he did when he was in Exodus last in 2004 which implies stagnancy, although that isn’t necessarily a bad thing for a vocalist who is known and loved for a very specific style of singing. But on the other hand, Holt’s songwriting has evolved during this decade and it simply isn’t possible to take several backward steps as a songwriter and exactly recreate that ‘Fabulous Disaster’ or ‘Tempo Of The Damned’ vibe and one feels the positive progress made on the Dukes-fronted albums with every effort getting better than its predecessor has come to a grinding halt due to this Zetro reboot.

That being said, the album has redeemable moments few and far between, thanks to Gary Holt and Lee Altus’ guitar work, Tom Hunting’s mastery behind the drum kit and Jack Gibson’s ever-solid bass play on some of the instrumental segments in the album, on the tunes ‘Collateral Damage’, ‘Body Harvest’ and ‘Wrapped In The Arms Of Rage’ in particular. The reunion with Kirk Hammett for a guest appearance will probably get 1% of Metallica’s millions of fans worldwide to buy this album but his guitar solo in ‘Salt The Wound’ is nothing out of the ordinary, and while the addition of Testament vocalist Chuck Billy for guest vocals is a credible display of the Bay Area thrash brotherhood, his backup singing alone don’t rescue the tune ‘BTK’.

The one-dimensional high-pitched singing eclipses the positive aspects of the songwriting and makes the album unlistenable from my perspective. The dark edge, the sting and the menace Exodus carried on their most recent efforts ‘Shovel Headed Kill Machine’ and the two ‘Atrocity Exhibit’ albums has disappeared, and as an extremely passionate fan of the band it deeply disappoints me that they decided to go this route and recede into this state of nostalgic rehash. I never thought I’d dislike an Exodus album this much, and from going on the wildest of adventures to see the band in concert such as riding the much maligned Greyhound buses to merely witness them play in their hometown, I’ve arrived at a starkly contrasting state wherein I’ll never willingly listen to their newest album ever again, and might not even want to attend their shows. With ‘Blood In, Blood Out’ Exodus have certainly regained popularity to a large extent but in the process they’ve lost an ardent fan.

Rating: 3/10

Record Label: Nuclear Blast

Release Date: October 14th 2014

Track Listing:
01. Black 13
02. Blood In Blood Out
03. Collateral Damage
04. Salt The Wound (featuring Kirk Hammett)
05. Body Harvest
06. BTK (featuring Chuck Billy)
07. Wrapped In The Arms Of Rage
08. My Last Nerve
09. Numb
10. Honor Killings
11. Food For The Worms

Exodus links: website | facebook | twitter

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