EXODUS • Strike Of The Beast 2LP

Imperial Records 2007
This is a beautiful package: 2LPs (one black, one green), high quality pressing, nice design with full colour insert... top notch in every way. Strike Of The Beast contains EXODUS' 1982 Demo and the Turk Street Demo (1984) plus a barely intelligible 1985 radio interview. I've heard the '82 demo before, and most likely have it on an old cassette somewhere, and this sounds pretty much how I remembered it - like a 9th generation cassette copy. It woulda been nice if they coulda found a cleaner version of these tracks, but that gripe is minor when compared to how great the songs are. Less manic and violent than they would soon become, the '82 demo sees EXODUS treading a more trad Metal path... and it's fantastic. Hard to imagine Baloff as a conventional Metal vocalist, but here's the proof. The Turk Street Demo sounds live, more like a rehearsal, but the quality is good, as the band tear through largely instrumental versions of most of the Bonded By Blood record (perfect for your next Thrash karaoke party!). We all knew that HEATHEN borrowed heavily from EXODUS, but check out "Strike Of The Beast" - it sounds exactly like the first HEATHEN record... I'd even swear it's Lee Altus playing the plentiful leads. This album is so heavy that when I opened it the records flew out and chopped a poser's head off at 20 yards (or something like that - anyone remember the original quote?) You're gonna wanna download this lest you be the poser at the receiving end of a vinyl decapitation.
DOWNLOAD: Exodus-StrikeOfTheBeast-Pt1.rar (53.22 MB)
DOWNLOAD: Exodus-StrikeOfTheBeast-Pt2.rar (57.43 MB)