UMUR "Fear of Tomorrow" is the debut full-length studio album by Danish thrash metal act Artillery. The album was released through Neat Records in August 1985. The band had existed for a couple of years and released a couple of demos before releasing "Fear of Tomorrow". Not many Danish thrash metal acts from the eighties made a name for themselves internationally, but Artillery are the exception to the rule.

Listening to "Fear of Tomorrow" it´s obvious why that is. This is high powered, raw, and technically well played thrash metal and considering that it´s a debut album and that it was released in 1985, I´d say the quality of the material is pretty high. The sound production is raw and not always that well sounding, but the sound suits the music. The band are well playing, delivering tight organic drumming, sharp riffing, and blistering solos, and to top it off Flemming Rønsdorf´s raw and rusty vocal delivery. He uses his higher pitched rusty vocals less on this album compared to later releases and sounds more rough here. A greatly skilled and powerful vocalist, who provides Artillery with a relatively original sound. I say relatively because the music is not as distinct sounding as the music of some of the leading contemporary acts like Metallica or Slayer, and does borrow elements from those acts. But hell...who didn´t do that in those early days of thrash metal.

"Fear of Tomorrow" is an old school thrash metal release, that while it may be adrenaline pumped and raw, is also relatively sophisticated for the time and therefore as a result maybe slightly more interesting than your run of the mill old school thrash metal release. Let´s face it! In those days thrash metal acts came by the dozen, and few of them were keepers (just as the case was in the nineties with death and black metal acts). "Fear of Tomorrow" is what I´d characterize as a keeper even though it´s not in the premier league of eighties thrash metal. A league Artillery would aspire to on later releases (in particular on "By Inheritance (1990)"). A 3.5 star (70%) rating is well deserved.

Time Signature Time has come...

Genre: thrash metal

"Fear of Tomorrow" by Artillery is perhaps a fairly unknown release to many younger metal fans, but it is a bit of a 80s thrash metal classic, which combines the European, more specifically German, thrash metal style associated with the likes of Sodom and Kreator with the American style of Metallica and Megadeth. To that, add the quirky compositional style of fellow countrymen Mercyful Fate, and you'll have "Fear of Tomorrow" by Artillery.

The production could be much better (even by 1985 production standards), and, in some cases, the performances on this album is not up to scratchs either (which, in retrospect, doesn't matter, because we know how great metal musicians those guys are now). However, it is still an interesting listen, and that is not just for the sake of nostalgia, because there is alot of quality music and great ideas here. While "Fear of Tomorrow" is by no means as progressive an album as "Master of Puppets", "Rust in Piece" or "Never, Neverland", most of its tracks contain several crazy changes in time and tempo, which are very much a sign of things to come.

I think that old school thrash metal fans will enjoy this album, and some progressive metal fans might also appreciate the compositional twists and turns, but younger metal fans, who are used to top notch production and modern-day thrash metal, might find it hard to appreciate the rawness of the album - which in turn is probably what old school metal fans will love about it.