review: Madhouse

Madhouse

Braindead

Iron Shield Records

June 12th 2020

Metal Archives lists at least ten bands named Madhouse and the site says that nine out of ten of them are thrash. Apparently, lots of young musicians back in the day watched the Anthrax MTV video for “Madhouse” from the exciting 1985 album, and with no internet, perhaps bunches of young musicians around the world came to the same conclusion. There is no way that Metal Archives even has the complete information because there are other bands with the same named not listed, like the Italian band, or the Belgian one.

Anyway, Metal Archives shows at least three bands from Germany with this name, but this is the Hamburg band after 1991 disappeared until 2014. This is where the details get hazy, so let me tell you what really happened, and I will give the facts only. In 2014 they met up once again on a dark night during a sandstorm in the desert in Hamburg, with torches in hand, and the storm was so severe that even their brave and trustworthy fire-breathing dragons and mighty unicorns refused to fly, so they had to ride in on their magical camels so that they could sign a new pact for rocking the world. So it was written, so it was done. In 2018 they declared to the world that their mission is Metal or Die, as the title of that album made obvious. They return in 2020 with Braindead. So, if you are keeping track, that’s two albums having titles about death. Do you know what that means? Party time is here! The Hamburg band is traditional heavy metal with a no-nonsense attitude of giving the people the songs that will get a physical, instant reaction from die-hard, love-it-all zealots that live for the cult and old-fashioned, rock-based headbanging tunes. Basically, it’s reliable headbanging metal in the ways of the old school. It’s chains and leather, and heavy metal. Therefore, if you are proud to be metal, and you are old at heart, old in age or old in tastes and habits, the Hamburg Madhouse is having a better time today than they ever did in the 1980s. Sometimes it takes decades to get the party started!

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