Hearkening back to time when extreme metal was far more innocent in nature and even rather fun (shock!), 's gloriously crude is one of those albums that only gets better with each passing decade, slowly growing to rightful consideration as one of the '80s best second-string thrash metal debuts. Why is that? Because the Cleveland, OH quartet's playing is sharp, but not to the point of machine-like precision; their songwriting chops are pretty plain and straightforward, but come imbued with that elusive excitement only wild youth can impart; and their amplifiers are turned up to 11 at all times. Introduced by the amusing (a chaotic jumble of groaning voices and clanging metal), the seven-minute title track is a good case in point, offering a simultaneously accomplished and raw combination of trad-metal riffs and sub-thrash rhythms, and naturally it deals with the subject of nuclear holocaust (naturally). Outright thrashing really gets going in its wake, with pimply-faced moshers like and doing their best to replicate the lessons had clearly learned from albums like 's , , and . They fare pretty well in comparative spirit, if not comparable quality, and serve to spotlight both 's ultra-enthusiastic, always exciting fretwork, and 's versatile combination of singing and screaming vocals. Additional, somewhat less frenetic numbers like (complete with short solo runs from since deceased bassist ), and the self-explanatory are sometimes almost too meathead-stupid, lyric-wise, to be stomached; but then were hardly trying to educate anyone, they were out to, err...destroy! And cheers to that! [After years languishing in deleted catalog purgatory, was remastered and reissued on CD in 1999 by with numerous bonus cuts, to boot.] ~ Eduardo Rivadavia