Search - Onslaught :: Force

The ultimate THRASH band!

David Cantu | Universal City, Texas | 12/04/2004

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Onslaught was one of those bands from the '80s that will forever be engrained as masters of the death metal genre. Their first album "Power From Hell" was as vicious as anything that had been released up to that point--Sodom's "In The Sign Of Evil", Celtic Frost's "Morbid Tales" and Slayer's "Hell Awaits". "Power From Hell" was pure evil.....



The second album "The Force" was more thrashy, but still 100% evil. Starting with the album cover (a pentagram) and with song titles such as "Fight With The Beast", "Demoniac", and the godly "Let There Be Death", how can anybody think that this was Stryper?



If you claim to be a metalhead and are into '80s Death/Speed/Black/Thrash/HEAVY metal, GET THIS!



Caution: May cause whiplash!!!"

One Of The Few Good British Thrash Albums To Come Along

Metal_Is_King | White Plains, NY | 01/30/2005

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Can you name all of the great British thrash metal that came along in the 1980's? Well, there was Motorhead (not really a true thrash band, but they certainly influenced the scene). Then you had Venom, the band that started the Black Metal movement. Venom also made the Sex Pistols sound like Donny & Marie. Discharge and Broken Bones? They were more punk than metal. Then there was.......uh......hmmmm. It seems that all of the truly great thrash albums of the '80s either came from America or continental Europe.



One of the few exceptions was Onslaught's THE FORCE. When I was a teenager back in the mid-80's I used to listen to this radio show in New York call Midnight Metal. Imagine, six hours of heavy metal on the radio every Saturday night. Anyway, one night in the Spring of '86 they played "Let There Be Death". I was instantly hooked. The guitar riffs were insane. The song was so unbelievably vicious, yet at the same time, it didn't fly completely off the rails. Their vocalist had a decent voice. I had to go out and get the album. The whole thing is very good. This is working-man's thrash metal. The best songs are "Let There Be Death", "Demoniac", and "Flame Of The Antichrist". I'm giving the album four stars instead of five because of the silly Satanic lyrics. If you can get past that, this album is a gem. The editorial review for THE FORCE compared it to early Slayer. Don't worry about that. Every thrash metal band ends up being compared to Slayer. Onslaught stood up on their own with this album."