Bad Karma: Death Has No Calling Card

Bad Karma is an American Thrash Metal band that was based out of Boston, MA. and that had produced three self-financed EP's back in the late 80's, early 90's and then again in the late 90's and then disbanded. Shadow Kingdom Records were fans of this little known band and have packaged those three EP's into one CD entitled Death Has No Calling Card, that now contains 11 full tracks.

Bad Karma's original 1988 demo was also entitled Death Has No Calling Card, and like most aspiring young Thrash bands of the mid to late 80's, they 'borrowed' a LOT from Metallica, who at the time still belonged to us true Headbangers. The three song demo was produced surprisingly well for an actual demo from a 'local' band of that era. The EP opens with the title track, "Death Has No Calling Card" and yup, the vocals sound exactly like the young Mr. James Hetfield, complete with a slew a what I have always called, "Hetfield-isms", which are they way that Hetfield has always annunciated the end of his words and phrases. No real harm done, as that is what all local Thrash Metal bands of that did and is also why those bands didn't really get past the local or 'regional' level. "Shadows Of Yesterday" has a hard lean towards 'Tallica's "Sanitarium (Welcome Home) and "Tame The Beast" is a no holds barred thrasher, again with those Hetfield themed vocals. All 3 songs are done very well, just not very originally, but fans of the Master of Puppets era will enjoy this.

Tracks 4 through 8 are comprised from a 1990 demo that finds the band a bit tighter and more intricate and the vocals are now less Hetfield and more like Chuck Billy of Testament. "Enter You Become" is a good example of the band's growth and maturity and Testament fans of The Legacy era will dig this batch of songs. Tracks 9-11 are taken from Bad Karma's 1999 demo and these songs are less Thrash and more 'Prong' like and the vocals of these three songs remind me totally of Tommy Victor of Prong, so there's that. The '99 demo also features a good cover of the Alice Cooper classic, "Billion Dollar Babies".

With Shadow Kingdom Records shining some light on the band with this compilation of their three demos, Bad Karma have now reformed and are writing and recording their first full length record. As you can easily hear with these songs, Bad Karma grew with the times and evolved from a Thrash Metal band in the 80's to a more 90's friendly, heavy band. Death Has No Calling Card is a nice homage to a band that most of us have never heard of, but a situation that most of us have all been around growing up in your own local Metal music scene.

Track Listing
1. Death Has No Calling Card 05:22
2. Shadows of Yesterday 07:44
3. Tame the Beast 03:38
4. Enter You Become 06:14
5. Intro 02:17
6. Unsane 06:39
7. Capitol Punishment 05:17
8. The Final Chapter 08:11
9. Twist of Fate 04:04
10. Destiny 04:09
11. Billion Dollar Babies 03:40

Added: August 31st 2017
Reviewer: Butch Jones
Score:
Related Link: Band @ Bandcamp
Hits: 1291
Language: english

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