SODOR, Evil Thrash Metal (2014, demo)

The skull:
Shit got really dark on the Island of Sodor after the pirates landed. The grainhouses were quickly emptied and of course the mansions and pleasure gardens of the island’s corrupt oligarchs were looted and burned immediately. The de facto governor and the wealthiest man on the island, Sir Topham Hatt, came in for particularly brutal treatment. After being stripped naked and whipped in the street, he was dragged in chains before a largely celebratory populace gathered in the central square of Tidmouth. There he was castigated, stoned, then drawn, hanged, and quartered. His head was impaled on a cross taken from one of the many looted churches on the island, and left out to rot and bleach as reminder of the merciless power of the pirates. His signature hat, once the very symbol of his power, was cast into the crowd where it was torn to shreds. Several farmers added scythes to the grim display as a token reminder of the especial suffering of the agricultural class under Hatt’s rule. The islanders quickly found that even without their rail system (which was plundered or simply destroyed by the invaders) and despite having to pay a fairly heavy tax of farmed goods to the brigands, their real incomes actually increased under the pseudo-rule of the pirates, who, after all, were not nearly as rapacious as the island’s former kleptocratic regime.

The music:
Even by the standards of Brazilian rethrash, this is pretty weak, with dull songs, poor playing, and tinny sound. Sodor borrows as heavily from crappy crossover (of the Cryptic Slaughter variety) as from the German stuff usually aped by South American thrashers. The rubbery bass and high pitched, rasping vocals recall Sadus somewhat, but only their earliest demos, as they were far more advanced even by Illusions than Sodor are here. Then again, these dudes probably average 19 years old, so maybe I should cut them some slack. No one starts great, right? Still, they’re gonna need to get a LOT better to satisfy just the least discriminating of modern thrash hounds, and I think there’s no chance at all that they’ll ever improve so much that I’d like them.
— Friar Johnsen