• 1
• 2
• 3
• 4
• 5

Nothing Sacred are one of many bands who have made a comeback in recent years, only they have a bit more cult appeal than most. Their EP Deathwish remains a cult classic of the Australian Thrash scene, a few of the band's members would go on to perform in the legendary Hobbs' Angel of Death, and they performed a reunion show in 2012, so even with tumultuous lineup changes since then, I'm really only surprised it took them this long to get an album out. Considering how cool their earlier output is, I was looking forward to seeing what the band could pull off decades later. Sadly, it doesn't seem to be much.

Whereas their classic material was akin to a thrashy Judas Priest, No Gods works in a much more typical, radio-friendly vein of Heavy Metal that flirts a little with Thrash when they speed up and a lot with modern Hard Rock otherwise. None of that is inherently bad, and I won't say there's any part of this I would call piss poor, but it is vastly inferior to their old sound in every way. Gone is the speed and energy that made songs like "No Rest" blast out of the speakers, instead replaced with a grooving mid-pace that doesn't vary a whole lot across the album, with even the faster material sounding rather laid-back in comparison. Part of this is due to the warm, fuzzy guitar sound and the nasally croon of new singer James Davies, both of which contribute heavily to the rock leanings this album takes, but even outside of that the performances are just kind of standard, without any good vocal hooks or memorable riffs to make up for how unoriginal it all is and ending up sounding uninspired as a result.

I dunno, maybe I'm being too hard on this album. I think this would have been better off going under a different band name, as it doesn't sound like a Nothing Sacred album that fans would want. On the other hand, this is a bog-standard release that is sometimes closer to commercial rock than anything, so they're gonna need the name recognition if they want this to get any attention, but I fear that said attention won't be all that positive in the long run. No Gods isn't an awful release, but as a Nothing Sacred comeback album, it's kind of sad.