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Thirst, being the band's thirteenth album, is the name of Tankard's newest musical manifesto. While overall it's your typical Tankard treat of crazy, awesome party Thrash, it also contains some new musical and lyrical paths. Most notably, there are lyrics present that are actually (no joke!) intelligent and interesting. The opening track, "Octane Warriors", for example, describes a world thrown into chaos after an energy crisis. Another song, "G.A.L.O.W.", contains references to Greek and Roman mythology. In short: not the standard beer-drinking nonsense (even though they pull that off quite good) one might expect from this group of insane German metalheads. Don't panic yet, since there's plenty of ridiculousness present too: "Myevilfart" talks about nasty vapors that tend to escape from the back of man, while "Sexy Feet Under" gives us a slightly disturbing, perverted story about an apparent foot-fetish.

Enough about the lyrics though. The music: no-nonsense, polished German Thrash Metal with gruffy vocals and catchy choruses. Great solos, great riffs, good drums and bass, unique singing... What else would you expect when buying a Tankard album? And while the group generally holds on to their standard path, there are also some new elements present. Acoustic guitars at the intro of "Stay Thirsty!" for example, female vocals in "When Daddy Comes To Play", or folk-ish parts in "Sexy Feet Under". Unfortunately, another factor is present that we all are used to: filler songs. As always, there's some skull-crushing anthems ("Octane Warriors", "Stay Thirsty!", "G.A.L.O.W."...) but also some less interesting songs ("Hyperthermia", "Deposit Pirates", "When Daddy Comes to Play"...)

Still, this is a very enjoyable and high quality release, even though the presence of lesser songs drags the score down quite a bit.