Photo by Kris Herrmann
Detroit death thrashers PLAGUE YEARS today drop a surprise EP, All Will Suffer, via MNRK Heavy alongside a new video!
PLAGUE YEARS is a band every devotee of thrash, crossover, and death metal should know. Citing the group’s Kreator, Sodom, and Slayer vibe with “a touch of evil,” tastemaker metal magazine Revolver gushed that the band is “genuinely mean.” In nuclear-sized fusion with thrash throwbacks like Dark Angel, the unrelentingly crushing quartet pays homage to hardcore-punk Michigan forebearers’ Negative Approach in attitude and gritty local gangster rappers in spirit.
A self-titled EP filled with spite and furious anger introduced PLAGUE YEARS to the world in 2017. Metal Temple declared the following year’s Unholy Infestation EP the best modern thrash record of 2018. Both early outbursts laid the brutal foundation for 2020’s gargantuan full-length and debut for MNRK Heavy, Circle Of Darkness. In a glowing 10/10 review, Metal Injection called it “nothing short of a modern thrash classic,” serving as a stern reminder of why support from the band’s peers was swift and decisive. (Fellow Great Lakes metalhead, the late Trevor Strnad of The Black Dahlia Murder, posted about the band on Instagram, which caught the attention of Toxic Holocaust mastermind Joel Grind. Soon after, PLAGUE YEARS signed with MNRK Heavy.)
That following year, vocalist Tim Engelhardt, guitarist Eric Lauder, bassist Rian Staber, and drummer Mike Jurysta buckled down in the midst of a real-world plague and did what they do best. Conjuring four new cuts of death thrashing mania, PLAGUE YEARS returns with a vicious EP called All Will Suffer.
All Will Suffer’s guitars, bass, and vocals were tracked by Lauder while Shaun O’Shaughnessy (Sanguisugabogg) engineered the drums. Mixing duties were handled by Roger Camero (Night Demon, Grave Maker, The Warriors) and mastering by Erol Ulug (Sleeping Giant, Teeth, The Great Commission). The EP boasts the same ripping intensity familiar to PLAGUE YEARS fans lucky enough to have seen them on tour, alongside bands including The Black Dahlia Murder, Skeletal Remains, Exhorder, and Somnuri.
Comments Lauder, “We wanted this record to be a darker and heavier version of ourselves, trying to blur the line even more between thrash and death metal. All Will Suffer is relentless from start to finish and is a prelude of what’s to come.”
Together with the release of the EP, the band has unveiled a video for the track “Suffer,” now playing at Metal Injection.
Writes Metal Injection, “All I have to say about this new EP is that PLAGUE YEARS is clearly not fucking around. The band is taking the best of thrash and death metal worlds, throwing ’em into a blender, and forcing the molten concoction down all our collective throats. Prepare to be destroyed.”
View “Suffer” now at THIS LOCATION.
All Will Suffer is available now on CD, LP, and digitally. Find all ordering options at THIS LOCATION.
All Will Suffer EP Track Listing:
- Make You Mortal
- Suffer
- Reality Of Filth
- Cursed
Like the beloved neo-thrashers Power Trip, PLAGUE YEARS mines the glory days of thrash. But their postmodern version adds down-tuned guitars, death metal elements, hardcore vocals, and massively muscular riffage. It’s like the noisy rage of classic Sepultura combined with the might of Obituary. The devilish, down-tuned, death-worship of PLAGUE YEARS serves as a demonic calling card for the Motor City foursome. It’s a brutal counterbalance to their otherwise like-minded metal revivalists.
PLAGUE YEARS:
Tim Engelhardt – vocals
Eric Lauder – guitar
Rian Staber – bass
Mike Jurysta – drums
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