Band:	Project Pain
Album:	Faster Disaster
Style:	Thrash metal
Release date:	October 2022

01. Val Kapot
02. Mean Metal Machine
03. Army From Hell
04. Submerged
05. Presto Vs Metal
06. Faster Disaster
07. Fields Of Death
08. Feel The Pain
09. Dead Inside
10. Die In Peace
11. F.Y.Y.F. [bonus]

Project Pain are back with another slab of their brand of 'meat and potatoes' thrash. Or, given they hail from the Netherlands, perhaps 'herring and gouda' thrash is more appropriate. Faster Disaster might be faster but is no disaster.

'Herring and gouda' thrash? What’s that? The basics of thrash. No need for fancy lad side-dishes like charred leeks or whatever. We’re talking speed. Lots of tremolo assault on the E string, riffs, riffs, beats, lots of yelling and screaming. Guitar solos. Drums pounding. Adrenaline and madcap energy. The good stuff. Moar Faster.

So I lied. A little. There are some tiny little extra bits of garnish. Not a heaping pile of grilled kale dumped on your herring picanha, but like a good rub. Sonar Pings can be found in “Submerged” and a few bars of “Johnny Get Your Gun” kick off “Mean Metal Machine”. Little tiny bits of flava added to the mix, but nothing to interfere with your thrashing experience.

This is Project Pain at their Project Painiest. It’s the familiar structure they’ve used for the past three albums I’ve reviewed. Sounds similar, feels similar, but a little tighter, a little better executed. I guess I could say a little more refined, but refinement and thrash don’t exactly go together.

Well, at least to my untrained but metal-loving ears, while the album – particularly the faster (disaster?) tracks – represent the band making some minor improvements to what has worked; I do think that the solos are noticeably improved. While I spent most of the Covid-19 Darkest Timeline watching and re-watching “Community” on streaming, guitarist Guido den Hoed seems to have spent the time lost locked in his basement dungeon chained to the wall, guitar in hand, shredding furiously. In the past the solos existed, and kept the energy and momentum of the songs going; this time, they grabbed my attention. They are streets ahead this go around. Enough so that “Presto Vs Metal” eschews vocals entirely and lets him shred away.

Again, I’m not Forged Soul or Rick Beato to break down scales and modes, they just caught my ear and yanked my attention away from whatever shoot-em-up I was playing with this album as the soundtrack to mayhem. Adios to my KDR, too busy raising a beer and horns.

Their last, Brothers In Blood, closed with some sound advice, “I Don’t Give A Fuck”, this one also ends with a lifehack, “F.Y.Y.F”: “Fluff? Yes! You Fold!” – every young thrasher reading this needs to know how to properly launder their black t-shirts, jeans and spiked undies.

(Editor's note: That’s not what “F.Y.Y.F.” stands for... try “Fuck You, You Fuck!”)

Oh. My.

I’ve struggled with this like a lot of reviews lately, as if that last bad joke didn’t make it clear enough. Words are failing me in my advanced age, just like my liver and my short-term memory. If you’ve read my past reviews of their works and enjoyed those albums, this is worth a spin. If you are new to Project Pain, this would be the spot to jump on in.

If you’ve made it this far, Go to bandcamp or, uh, fuck you, you fuck!