A full forty years beyond their first demo tape and down to just one original member it is only by decades of trial and error in random bursts that Brandon, Florida-borne heavy/thrash metal quintet NASTY SAVAGE reappear with a fifth full-length album. By all means ‘Jeopardy Room‘ does well to replicate the signature dealings of this band at their peaking late 80’s accost though the dedicated listener who’d spent the last couple of decades admiring their huge early-days personality may find some of the details lacking. This doesn’t stop their efforts from kicking all manner of brutal-thrash ass but how well it meets fan expectations will depend on which of their releases set those standards for your own taste. For the completionist classic thrash metal ear, or, I suppose folks who’ve a marked interest in the Tampa-area heavy metal scenery of a certain era should be well-pleased by the authenticity of this release and its ‘old school’ muscle memory for the riff.

Formed circa 1981 under a different name (Nightmare) with a different vocalist the founding line-up for Nasty Savage became official circa 1983 as frontman “Nasty Ronnie” Galletti brought the rest of the folks on board. believe they’d been inspired by an early version of Savatage (among other bands) to put their own gig together but their sound on that first tape was ballsy, mean and sinister in a way that many bands weren’t thanks to the double-bass drumming that has long been part of their signature. Their early demo tape (‘Wages of Mayhem‘, 1984) released amidst an increasingly wild live presence, notably featuring Galetti‘s backyard wrestling showmanship, which’d made a name for the group in their Tampa-area stomping grounds. This level of aggression and physicality would ultimately inspire bands like Obituary (both Tardy bros. guest spot on a song here) to go harder at it themselves. Bands were burning hot and fast at the time and all that’d happened between 1984-1989 helped make these folks a well-known name among die-hard power/thrash, speed metal, and thrash metal fandom which endures today.

Before you take this new album on lock your damned skull into at least one spin through the band’s self-titled debut (‘Nasty Savage‘, 1985) then take a look at early Hallow’s Eve, Destructor and maybe even early Fates Warning records in hindsight and you’ll get a sense for these folks being in rare company, broad in their reach, and extreme by comparison. Longtime guitarists David Austin and Ben Meyer (Gardy Loo!, ex-Acheron) were a big part of the band’s riff machine the for those first three albums as they’d steadily reached their highest highs in the late 80’s. The band seems to have long been happiest with ‘Indulgence‘ (1987) as their peak performance though ‘Penetration Point‘ (1989) was the height of their popularity I believe the year between (1988) involved a bigger European tour. The band’s preference for their second LP kinda shows here as we tuck into the album cover for ‘Jeopardy Room‘, a surrealistic painting in the same style as ‘Indulgence‘ resembling one of several pieces from the multi-talented Lewis VanDercar who’d provided artwork for each of their official releases. This carries through the music itself, also, opting for something far more straightforward than the style they’d returned with two decades ago during a period of thrash revivalism for ‘Psycho Psycho‘ (2004).

At this point all original members are out besides Galletti and the focus for this album seems to be getting back in touch with their own brand of late 80’s directed classic thrash, aggressive yet uncomplicated by modern metal or trends etc. They’ve pulled it off pretty well all things considered, you’re basically getting signature Nasty Savage throughout but with the production amped up to a death-thrash level here and there and at least one song (“Witches Sabbath”) re-recorded with a guest spot from John and Donald Tardy providing vocals and drums accordingly as a mid-album highlight. Otherwise set your expectations to something more straight-forward than ‘Indulgence‘ with fewer King Diamond-esque shrieks and dark interjections, sticking to easier-going Slayer-esque trample for most songs. Up front opener/title track “Jeopardy Room” and the slightly more adventurous single “Brain Washer” takes us there quickly sounding more like Num Skull or the second Forced Entry record to some degree, a brutal thrash clap to the drums aiding in the downpour but once the chorus hits you’ll at least get some of their old ‘tude via the vocals.

I’m out there every week scouring the internet for decent ‘old school’ thrash metal and typically return empty-handed, so, from my perspective hitting a song like “Brain Washer” had me stoked for the sheer authenticity of what these folks are pulling off. Sure, credit where credit is due Galletti knows the real thing when he hears it but I figure part of that correct-ass feeling comes from the Jim Morris (via Morrisound Recording Studio) set sound design which I appreciate all the more having listened to bad approximations of that same sound by way of engineers for the last couple of decades. Otherwise I’ve no real idea of who the other folks in the band are, how long they’ve been at it etc. but the core sound of Nasty Savage is very well represented here and especially versus the sometimes iffy choices made on ‘Psycho Psycho‘ where the songcraft hit some shaky ground. The middle portion of ‘Jeopardy Room‘ will likely be the test for the newcomer if not for the way “Southern Fried Homicide” kicks in but for the slower, extra ‘old school’ keyboard haunted “Witches Sabbath” which has Don Tardy sounding kinda like Cirith Ungol‘s Tim Baker. “Schizoid Platform” pulls back in but the pace of the middle portion of the record briefly threatens to drag for the sake of its grooves.

The rest of Side B has its moments as the immersive intro to “Aztec Elegance”, the shredding leads all over “Operation Annihilate”, and the sex-moan heavy “Blood Syndicate” all call for some form of attentiveness from the listener. For my own taste the riffs don’t really all line-up for the kill during that stretch and it wasn’t until the simple mosh-ready swing of “The 6th Finger” hit that I was back on board through the final two songs that cap off the record. While these events are all pretty consistent with the Nasty Savage experience in general, and it is rad enough that they’ve put together a fully listenable album after such a long time between releases, I don’t know that this one will necessarily outclass their classics-era releases for me. Without those extra layers available to the band’s early days, such as the exaggerative vocal style, the impact of this record was limited to just a handful of steamroller level brutal thrash songs and that’d more-or-less been enough to carry the listening experience. It is awesome to see the band back in fighting form though I have to admit I was expecting more from the vocals and less from the riffs, so, the overall effect balances out to a pretty decent record that meets an above-average standard for classic thrash metal representation. A moderately high recommendation.

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