Обзоры Thrash Metal Revival 'zine от Корнела Контроша (Enconium 'zine)
THRASH METAL REVIVAL
Issue #1, 2009
The debut issue of this Odessa-based underground fanzine
comes on 24 A5 format low-quality printed b/w pages. Design-wise, first
of all, I would recommend for future issues to separate the interviews
in a better way, 'cause they eventually messed up at some pages.
Secondly, to add a foreword to each interview and to place them at the
top of it, 'cause sometimes it's really hard to figure out where is the
beginning or even the end of one or other interview. Thirdly, I would
advice to add more band/live photos to the interviews as well as
album/demo covers to the review sections, respectively. OK, enough said
about the outlook, let's see the content instead. There are 8 interviews
in total with such more or less known Thrash & Death Metal acts as
FATAL ENERGY, ТИРАН, BESTIAL REVILER, CASTRUM, ГРОМАДА,
DEATHINCARNATION, CRUSHER and VIOLENT OMEN. Most of the interviews are
done in a meaty & informative way, but unfortunately there are a few
short ones, which weren't as interesting to read over. There's also a
two-paged gig report about legendary German Thrashers NECRONOMICON and
their intervention in Russia. Plus you can dive for a short into
album/demo reviews, which unfortunately were limited just to 3 pages.
Great to notice that the main purpose of the editorial team is to
support the small and local acts instead of the bigger ones plus to
focus the attention on Thrash & Death Metal styles in general! I've
really enjoyed reading this first issue of Thrash Metal Revival, despite
some minor objections that every debut issue suffers from, and looking
forward to its continuation and improvements both content and
design-wise! Ah, forgot to mention, it's written in Russian and has an
18-track compilation CD-R as a bonus!
THRASH METAL REVIVAL
Issue #2, 2010
Second issue continues where the first ended.
Unfortunately, design-wise we have totally no improvements, I would say
the letters even more unreadable compared to the debut issue, especially
when it goes to some interviews' forewords or the editor's introduction
itself. Really hard to read those small, pretty light letters due to
the bad-quality xeroxed way. This time we have 36 Russian-written pages
kept on A5 format. Interviews are as follows with ATOMIC CARNAGE
Records, ARBITRATOR, BLOOD POLLUTION, KOMA, DRAUGGARD, MASTEMAH, SIDUS
MORTUORUM, TANTAL and TORTURER. Some of them are interesting and some
are not, while some of them are too long or became too short. I would
advice to find something in between regarding the length and to have
those interviews thrilling from the beginning to the end and to keep the
reader always excited and not bored to death while the interview ends.
To all this you can add a 2-paged article about the latest gigs of Metal
Special Fest, one page full of hot news, 3 pages of reviews, which are
still too less for me and as usual a bonus CD-R containing 15 tracks
from most of the above interviewed bands. I really do hope that next
issues will provide us more reviews & interviews with the deserved
thrill & quality!!!
THRASH METAL REVIVAL
Issue #3-4, 2011
The newest split issue of Thrash Metal Revival finally
shows the marks of progression. First of all, the quality of the whole
print has been improved thus the letters became enjoyable to read as
well. Secondly, the A5 format changed to A4, which is very good!
Page-wise we have 48 to explore. You can read on interviews with METAL
SPECIAL Fest, VACULA Productions, RAPEN WINTER Records, KARMA RAGE,
VIOLENT OMEN, BLOOD POLLUTION, UNGOLIANTHA, ТЕМНИЧ, FROZEN ROCK,
AMBIVALENCE, SOMNOLENT, HOLY DRAGONS, SANHEIM, D.ANGER, IMMORALIST,
ТРУПНЫЙ ЯД and MAD V. There's also a bunch of articles dealing with
festivals & gigs, such as Global East Rock Festival, Metal Special
Fest, Metal Freedom Festival, Teutonic Assault Vol.2, Thrash You Ass,
Summerhate plus an article covering the rising Thrash Metal movement in
Ukraine. Well, really not bad content in general. Although the
album/demo/'zine reviews still lack in my opinion as we have only 5
pages with pretty big letters to read about. In comparison to
predecessor issues this split one definitely displays a better level. So
I keep my fingers crossed to all the future issues!!! The only thing I
would still exclude is the presence of free unused spaces on at least 6
pages throughout the issue. Please put there some ads or more band
photos, album covers, whatever just not the way it is used for this
issue. People who want to know more about the Ukrainian metal
underground should get their hands on this edition. The only requirement
is the knowledge of Russian language. It comes with a bonus audio
compilation, so you can listen to some music as well during your read.
