Recipients of Death - Recipients of Death (1988)

This is one of my all-time favorite albums!

I randomly discovered this band about six years ago when me and some friends were at a second hand shop browsing through the used LPs in search of some classic metal. I remember I found a bunch of cool records that day. I picked up Slayer’s, ‘Live Undead,’ Massacre’s, ‘From Beyond,’ Black Sabbath’s, ‘Never Say Die!’ and then I saw this beast. I had no idea who they were, but somehow that Mushroom cloud on the cover was saying, ‘Buy me, buy me you fucking asshole!’ So, I bought it, and holy mother of fucking Jesus Christ have I ever loved this band since that day!

The Recipients of Death were a short lived Californian quartet who released their debut album in 1988 and one final EP in 1990 before calling it a career. Musically this is pure 80’s thrash/death metal largely influenced by the gods of that era, namely; Slayer, Possessed, Dark Angel, Kreator and Sepultura, (etc. etc.). Lead guitarists Zac Taylor and Albert Gomez were freakin’ riff gods and their solos were absolutely colossal thrashing madness ripped straight from the aforementioned bands, mostly Slayer though (especially the song Seizure). Chris Broguiere handled the drums and he was one of those thrashy death metal drummers that absolutely destroyed the skins, but he still knew how to throw in plenty of drum rolls and roaring fast double bass pedal work too. Dead Rich G. handled the bass and vocals and while the bass is somewhat hidden you can occasionally hear it poking out. His vocals bring to mind Don Doty’s voice on the first two Dark Angel records and his lyrics are very, very well wrote too.

What’s interesting about this album is that it’s only seven songs long and just twenty minutes in length and it’s so good that I’ve often times played it two or three times in a row. It’s one of those albums you just toss on the record player and headbang the entire time you’re listening, and believe me I’ve done this many times. I’ve also often times thought about framing the poster that came with the LP so when friends visit they could ask me who the fuck the Recipients of Death are. I love this album!

I was going to end this review by saying it’s a crime against humanity that this album hasn’t been re-released, but I just did an EBay search and found that it has indeed been re-released on CD recently with the EP they did after this full-length. Bought it instantly of course, amazingly only $5.99 too. Go here to pick up yourself a copy. Fuck all other music. It’s going to be a thrash metal week here at Lunar Hypnosis.

Lastly thee metal archives list the band as being active, which I couldn’t find any info about, but if it is indeed true I’m going to hunt these guys down and make them play for me and then thank them for this short but incredibly awesome record.