Shah – Fire And Brimstone Collection

‘Fire and Brimstone Collection’ is the fifth album of the Soviet/Russian Thrash Metal legend Shah, released in the Summer of 2022. Technically this is not really an album, but a compilation/collection: Shah just repeated their trick with the second album ‘Terror Collection’ (1991), i. e. they recorded several old unreleased songs (the eleventh track is from 1985, the second, fourth and fifth from 1986, from the seventh to the tenth from 1987) and added to them three “modern” songs composed on the occasion (the first, third and sixth from 2021). It’s been 28 years (!) since the band’s last album ‘P.S.I.H.O.’ was released, so we’ll have to look back much more often than usual to appreciate this release.

Musically ‘Fire and Brimstone Collection’ is the most reminiscent of ‘Terror Collection’ of Shah’s previous albums, more precisely, around its first third – the songs are mostly fast, not distinguished by the structure’s complexity and the melody’s sophistication. Right, ‘Fire and Brimstone Collection’ does not scintillate with variety, but due to such storm dynamics there will be no diversity. Of course, Metallica’s influence is felt like on all previous albums (what is Shah without Metallica), but in the 21st century this influence is diluted with more aggressive tendencies: beyond all doubt, ‘Fire and Brimstone Collection’ is Shah’s wildest and facemelting album.

If you have not heard Shah before, we’ll have to go the other way. If you compare ‘Fire and Brimstone Collection’ with anything, it’s with Slayer’s ‘Reign in Blood’ – some songs nothing less than clamour about it (‘Heartache and Tears’, ‘Lost and Born’, ‘Mortal Victims’ and ‘Seven Gates’). ‘Hell Awaits’ also makes itself felt sometimes, but, of course, in a more rigid form (‘No Hope and No Faith’). And if Slayer’s marks are not clearly recognizable, then it is still classic American Thrash Metal (‘Fire and Brimstone’ and ‘Genocide’). Thus, only three songs remain for Teutonic Thrash Metal (‘Paranoia’, ‘Touch My Wound’ and ‘Mental Mayhem’). Of course, this is a rather conditional “systematization”, just for clarity.

In accordance with old school Thrash Metal tradition, every song on ‘Fire and Brimstone Collection’ contains a solo, and for the present purpose Slayer influences (‘No Hope and No Faith’, ‘Mortal Victims’, ‘Genocide’, ‘Seven Gates’ and ‘Mental Mayhem’) are inferior to Metallica ones after all (‘Fire and Brimstone’, ‘Heartache and Tears’, ‘Paranoia’, ‘Lost and Born’ and ‘Touch My Wound’). Metallica of ‘Fire and Brimstone Collection’, however, is tougher and more violent, which never really existed.

Songs of different years are listened to monolithically, on the same wavelength. If you don’t know the details, you’ll never suspect an “age gap” because pieces are attuned with each other very well. However, “modern” songs (i. e. written in 2021) are not equal. If the opening ‘Fire and Brimstone’ is a banal Thrash Metal-ish attack with a simple structure – it is clear that it was just patterned after a proven model, and if the whole album were like that, then it would be just a fluff opus – then in its turn ‘Heartache and Tears’ fits into the ‘Fire and Brimstone Collection’ material more organically. While ‘Mortal Victims’ is one of the most interesting songs on the album in terms of musical richness, its attractiveness is further enhanced by the fact that the vocalist (Mihail Zhemchujny) fires off his lyrics very quickly (in the vein of Tom Araya, of course), which is actually not very typical for his usual manner.

As for the “old” songs, ‘No Hope and No Faith’ (1986) stands out from them – despite the simple structure, its riffing is just magnificent in its aggressive progression; in turn ‘Paranoia’ (1986) is notable partly owing to its riff in the spirit of Kreator’s ‘Endless Pain’; ‘Seven Gates’ (1987) apart from everything else calls attention to itself by slow passage, which comes across on the album not so often, and its opening triumphant mid-tempo riff with bells, by the way, is the spitting image of Metallica. The last slow and groovy ‘Running Wild’ (1985) stands out the most, not only because it is arranged as a pseudo-live piece (according to the ‘Terror Collection’ tradition, by the way). Although ‘Running Wild’ contains a couple of accelerations, it is the slowest track on the album. Evil composition, excellent in its riffage.

Through the use of a modern kind of production (guitarist/songwriter Anton Garcia was the producer of this album, he was also responsible for mixing and mastering), all the “old” songs sound very present-day. And also because some of them use quite modern techniques. Let’s take another look at ‘Running Wild’ as the most striking example. Its riffs feature a slight dissonance, while the ’80s metalheads used this technique very rarely. If the best happened, ‘Running Wild’ sounds like a slow-motion Voivod, but only their ‘War and Pain’ could be heard in 1985, and the true Voivod haven’t revealed their true colors yet in these almost punkish songs (as if you take only punk rock from Venom). Apparently, only the skeleton was composed for ‘Running Wild’ back in 1985, while the flesh has already grown in our time.

The story is almost the same with the rest of the “old” songs – it’s clear that in the second half of the 80s they sounded a bit different. If in those years these songs were exactly as we know them now, then Shah undoubtedly surpassed/outstripped Slayer. As well as Voivod mentioned above. Damn, it’s as if, for example, Slayer suddenly resurrected and released an album in the vein of ‘Scream Bloody Gore’, while claiming that these songs are unreleased ones which they wrote back in 1981-1982.

It’s clearly enough that the material recorded for the debut album ‘Beware’ (1989) sounds much softer than its “forerunner” ‘Fire and Brimstone Collection’. There are practically no traces of fast and aggressive Thrash Metal in the vein of Slayer here, this album is mostly mid-tempo almost melodic Heavy/Thrash Metal work. Of course, there’s an almost uncovered influence of Metallica here (‘Master of Puppets’), Megadeth can be caught sometimes too (mainly ‘Peace Sells… But Who’s Buying?’), especially in the vocal part (Garcia himself sang on ‘Beware’). And, of course, ‘Beware’ is much more complex in terms of structure, riffs, and solo parts, you know, ‘Fire and Brimstone Collection’ is just a minimalistic work compared to it. You could even say that ‘Beware’ and ‘Fire and Brimstone Collection’ are two completely different Shahs.

However, if we listen to the band’s very first demo, ‘Escape from Mind’ (1988) – not the self-titled album (1994)! – then, like archaeologists looking for traces of ancient civilizations in the depths of the soil, we can find clear references to the ‘Fire and Brimstone Collection’ material, which was mostly composed before this demo (1985-1987 against 1988). Yes, there is more Metallica vibe here than anything else too, however, the first riff of the third ‘Escape’, a couple of riffs from the fifth ‘Warhead’, again a couple of riffs from the sixth ‘Dead or Alive’ are in the primitive spirit of ‘Fire and Brimstone Collection’. And there are some echoes of ‘Reign in Blood’ in the seventh ‘Mad Future’. In turn, the last eighth ‘Fire’ is in the spirit of Kreator’s ‘Endless Pain’, this is also an almost minimalistic song. In fact, the second half of the ‘Escape from Mind’ demo (which, by the way, was ignored during the recording of new versions for the later self-titled album) is what we’re looking for.
It can even be assumed that the “old” tracks on the ‘Fire and Brimstone Collection’ were just rejected/discarded in those years as not very well thought out, and they were got into shape in 2021.

If we have gone through all Shah’s albums, then it would be a sin to ignore their fourth opus ‘P.S.I.H.O.’ (1994). Well, we can only be glad that Shah are back with the “proto-era” material and not with the ‘P.S.I.H.O.’ era product. Yes, in general, the same Metallica and Megadeth are here. But. Already late Metallica and Megadeth. Respectively, ‘Metallica’ and ‘Countdown to Extinction’. But it would be nice if the matter was limited only to them. Some Grunge tendencies most likely came from Anthrax’ ‘Sound of White Noise’ while modernistic tendencies from Pantera’s “Cowboys from Hell” and ‘Vulgar Display of Power’. The result is some unimaginable mix of Thrash Metal, Grunge, Heavy Metal, Alt Metal and a bit of Groove Metal. Beyond all doubt, this album is not to everyone’s taste. That means it is almost a poison for fans of previous albums. Well, ‘P.S.I.H.O.’ is good in some ways, but maybe it was still better to go without Grunge. It only remains to note that with such a technically intense album as ‘P.S.I.H.O.’ behind, it was easy as pissing for Shah (more precisely, for Anton Garcia) to write/correct the ‘Fire and Brimstone Collection’ material.

Indeed, it was shrewd of Shah not to design the booklet for this album in a retro manner, i. e. without a collage of old photographs. It’s clear that ‘Fire and Brimstone Collection’ is a “blast from the past”, but it could get lost among periodical reissues/represses of Soviet Metal classics (by CD-Maximum, for example) with such collages. The album cover is modern, however, modern in a bad way. Not that the previous Shah’s album covers were notable for some uniqueness or originality, but those naive nightmare pictures would have been better. The ‘Fire and Brimstone Collection’ cover art is more suitable for some average modern black metal album, where young black metallers try to clone Behemoth for the thousandth time.

Summary. Anyway, ‘Fire and Brimstone Collection’ is still the same good old Shah. It is a real gift for the band’s fans, even with a surprise, since it features the “proto-era” material. However, this album is in no way suitable for starting to get to know the band – you will not find anything new here at all and even think that this is Thrash Metal-Revival. No, this is not Revival at all, this is a real Old School oasis.