Vintage Review: Intruder's Psycho Savant (1991)

Intelligence, talent, desire, insight and straight-up balls…Intruder is, without a doubt, the finest thrash outfit on the planet today, bar none. With the impending release of Psycho Savant, their third LP (with a fine EP also under their belts), the rest of the world will soon discover what Nashville area Intruder fans already know all too well: Intruder kicks ass!

Psycho Savant showcases the band at its fierce best, opening with a literal kick in the teeth called “Face of Hate,” an eye-opening look at the ignorance and hatred of past generations which still wreaks havoc in society today. The rest of the disc is equally powerful and poetic. Beneath the lightning-quick riffs which fall from Arthur Vinnett’s six string like so many drops of acid rain, Jimmy Hamilton’s growling vocals and the pounding rhythm section of guitarist Greg Messick, bassist Todd Nelson, and big-beat drummer extraordinaire John Pieroni, lies the heart of the band’s success: their impressive social awareness.

Though the music will appeal to any fan of loud and fast thrash metal, Intruder’s lyrical penchant for real-world concerns and their ability to relate their insights in words sets them above the current wave of thrashers. Songs like “Geri’s Lament (When),” “Traitor of the Living” (about the government’s Mount Weather facility), and “Final Word” will appeal to one’s intellect as well as your rock and roll soul. Muscular, aggressive and though-provoking…need I say more? (Metal Blade Records)

Review originally published The Metro, 1991

Vintage Review: Intruder's A Higher Form of Killing (1989)

Intruder may not have been Nashville’s first but they were definitely the city’s best-known thrash band. Veterans of various local punk and metal outfits, Intruder built upon the speed-metal sound pioneered by bands like Metallica and Megadeth, adding elements of what would later become known as “progressive metal” to their unrelenting aural attack. Fueled by the phenomenal virtuosity of guitarist Arthur Vinett, the throaty growl of vocalist James Hamilton, and the songwriting skills of drummer John Pieroni, Intruder built a large cult following across the United States and in Europe on the strength of their brutal live performances.

A Higher Form of Killing, the band’s second album and their first for Metal Blade Records, picks up the pace pretty much where Intruder had left off with their self-produced debut, Live To Die. Taking its title from the ground-breaking 1982 book on chemical and biological warfare by British journalists Robert Harris and Jeremy Paxman, Pieroni’s lyrics on A Higher Form of Killing mix a high-tech doom-and-gloom world view with a science-fiction landscape that has much in common with Voivod. “The Martyr” compares Middle Eastern suicide bombers with radical Christian fundamentalists, “Genetic Genocide” touches upon DNA therapy a decade or so before its widespread use and “Killing Winds explores the use of chemical weapons on the battlefields of Europe.

The high point of A Higher Form of Killing, however, is a manic cover of the Monkees’ hit “(I’m Not Your) Stepping Stone,” the pop/rock chestnut revved up and delivered with all the subtlety of the business end of a sledge-hammer. A strong collection of chainsaw speed-metal, A Higher Form of Killing put the so-called band from “Thrashville” on the musical map alongside genre giants like Nuclear Assault. (The Metro, 1989)