Exhorder: Mourn the Southern Skies (2019)

Reunion albums can be hit or miss.  Sometimes, the band gets back together and it is like nothing ever changed and some great music results.  Personally, Testament is one such band for me.  Other times, it can be a massive flop, the band has changed so much that the result is basically pissing on the band's legacy.  I'm looking at you, Sadus.  I was certainly intrigued when I had heard Exhorder was going to release a new album.

Exhorder is a noteworthy band in that they may have been one of the founders of the oft-maligned genre groove metal, which sound Pantera took and ran with in the early 1990's.  Exhorder released two terrific albums in the early 1990's: the thrashier Slaughter in the Vatican and the much more straightforward groove of The Law.  Despite their status as groove metal pioneers, they have largely been exempted from criticism for the genre's failings in subsequent years.  Perhaps that is because they did it so well.  It was going to be interesting to see what the band could do, 17 years after their last album.

Of course, before I begin, I must caveat any talk of a reunion by stating that only one member of the defunct band has returned.  That member is vocalist Kyle Thomas.  The rest of the band is filled out with entirely new members, so this is not really a true reunion album so much as a comeback album with a bunch of new members and the original singer.

Well, so how is it?  Quite simply, the band picks up right where the former Exhorder left off.  The album is an incredibly dynamic one, with the kind of Southern-style groove that made the band's earlier material so damn good.  The album features several blazing fast thrashers, such as the appropriately-titled face-melting track "Ripping Flesh".  It closes on a high note with the bluesy title track.  And there are of course those tracks that call back to The Law, such as the stomping groove of "Asunder".  And every single track on this album is fantastic. 

While this is not exactly a reunion album, it is all killer and no filler.  This album came really damn close to my top ten of the year.  It really is that damn good.  There are very few truly great groove metal albums out there, but this is definitely one of them.