PERFORMED
“Moronia”
Album Review by Iron Mathew

8.5/10

Performed are a thrash metal band from Slovakia formed in 2003, releasing their debut E.P. ‘Thick Fume Of Dependencies’ in 2009. The band released a live album in 2010, recorded at Diwadlo, a music venue in their home country of Slovakia. ‘Moronia’ is the bands debut studio album, and was released in 2021.

Featuring songs from their 2009 E.P. amid new ones, Slovakian thrashers Performed launch 2021 with their scorching debut album. With a total of eight songs over forty five minutes, the band bring the sound of the iconic Bay Area to the fore – the Bay Area of San Francisco synonymous with thrash metal, spawning bands such as Exodus, Metallica, Testament, and Death Angel, to name just a few. The fast paced, infectious and melodic tinged style is the stuff of head banging heaven – and while Performed haven’t got the status or back catalogue of the aforementioned bands, they are taking their first step on the stairway to heaven with their debut album – which begins with a mellow guitar intro, exploding into life with the blistering ‘Good Mood Stealer’. Full of crushing riffs and infectious rhythms, ‘Good Mood Stealer’ won’t actually steal your good mood, it’ll leave you breathless and in a very good mood. The ferocious pace is classic old school thrash of the most furious nature…

…dropping a gear for the Megadeth paced majestic march of ‘War’. Heavy and plodding, ‘War’ vibrates with attitude, stomping forth with bite. ‘Mental Leech’ lifts the pace and fairly speeds along like the Japanese bullet train, switching to a thunderous jack hammer style rhythm as the vocals kick in. And after just the three opening songs, Performed are demonstrating their prowess at bringing the old school sound forward to the modern day. Introducing a little menace once more is ‘Mammonist’, which sees, or rather hears, Performed doing their best Metallica impression. From the guitar sound to the vocals, ‘Mammonist’ does its best to be a Metallica song – right down to a couple of Hetfield “yeah”s… But it’s not a bad thing to sound like one of the greatest thrash metal bands the world has ever seen. Metallica should be honoured.

One of the albums standout songs ‘Killing Past’, is more heavy metal than thrash, with the guitar sound of the iconic NWOBHM making an appearance. The band are not afraid to mix things up – thrash and traditional metal, up tempo/mid tempo, fast and slower paced – showing vision to expand their musical boundaries. At almost eight minutes in length, the instrumental ‘Uzzur’ is the longest song on the album. With varying pace, tempo and styles, ‘Uzzur’ is a long instrumental that doesn’t lose your interest. Thundering into sight, ‘Thick Fume Of Dependencies’ is devastatingly heavy, and is gonna break a few bones as it barges by. Ending the album, is the title song, the attitude laden, ‘Moronia’. Combining elements of progressive metal and err, ahem, rap, ‘Moronia’ is a highly entertaining end to a very enjoyable album.

Overall, an album rammed with old school flavoured thrash metal to head bang hard to, and thoroughly enjoy.

TRACKLIST

Good Mood Stealer
War
Mental Leech
Mammonist
Killing Past
Uzzur
Thick Fume Of Dependencies
Moronia

https://performed.wbl.sk/
https://www.facebook.com/performedmetal

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