Kingcrimsonprog
Gama Bomb are a band principally from Northern Ireland, who play a very strict 1980’s influenced form of Crossover/Thrash Metal and incorporate a lot of humour into their lyrics.
Tales From The Grave And Space is their third full-length studio album, after 2006’s Survival Of The Fastest and 2008’s Citizen Brain. It was released in 2009 on Earache Records and is currently available for free legal download off of Earache’s website.
The musicianship is absolutely top notch and even more surprisingly, the production is of the absolute highest quality. This album sounds as almost as good in terms of production as other Thrash Metal albums from 2009 from long established bands like Exodus’s Exhibit B and Megadeth’s Endgame.
Highlights include ‘New Eliminators Of Atlantis B.C.’ as well as ‘We Respect You,’ and album closer ‘Mummy Invasion,’ all of which are fast and straightforward thrash metal numbers; mostly with more of an East Coast feel than Bay Area if you want to get more specific. The album is twelve tracks long, clocks in at half an hour in length.
As singer Philly Byrne has been known to say live ‘I hope you like songs that sound exactly like that one.’ Gama Bomb don’t incorporate anything else into their sound other than pure thrash metal; there are no ballads, no atmospheric buildups, no eastern scales and no fifteen minute progressive songs.
If you are a big fan of Nuclear Assault, S.O.D, Sacred Reich and more modern acts like Municipal Waste, SSS and Evile then Gama Bomb are certainly a worthwhile proposition that you should check out.
This album is very strong and no serious complaints can be made about any aspect of it other than the simple fact that it doesn’t come from the 80s and that there isn’t a whole lot of variety on offer, but if you expect any you may be missing the point of this band a little. If you hate humour in your thrash, you also may want to give it a miss, otherwise however Tales From The Grave And Space is a very good album that thrash fans should seriously enjoy.