Year: 2021
Total Time: 01:00:18
Label: Nuclear Blast

Having completed his obligations with SLAYER, Gary Holt – leader of Thrash Metal legends EXODUS, decided that it’s finally time to offer us a new album. It has already been seven years since the last time we heard new music from EXODUS (it was in 2014 with the remarkable “Blood In, Blood Out”). Holt also took advantage of the free time he had due to the pandemic, to set up the recording studio for the new album at Tom Hunting’s cottage, which is located in an idyllic mountain location. Therefore, the two of them, isolated without any pressure, worked on the new compositions. The result of all this process was released this November and is called “Persona Non Grata”.

The question is, “what could we expect in 2021 from EXODUS’s new album?”, as the band since “Tempo of the Damned” releases quite good albums, without being impressive though. Also, the feeling that lingered after every listen to those albums was that, although they sounded pleasant, something was missing to make you want to listen to them over and over again. But these thoughts belong to the past, as with “Persona Non Grata” EXODUS released a Thrash Metal monster that destroys everything in its path. The album has such immediacy and dynamic, that in every hearing you feel that you are lost through a violent Thrash Metal mosphit, receiving great riffs and brutality, combined with old school aesthetics and modern sound!

In this new release there is not a single mediocre moment and each song is a pilgrimage to the band’s musical heritage, with its members in demonic form. The “murderous” guitar duo of Gary Holt, who has written 90% of the music and lyrics, and Lee Altus deliver free Thrash Metal lessons with their violent riffs and solos, while the mighty Tom Hunting, having overcome his health problem, rips up the drums, building with Jack Gibson a huge rhythm section that gives power and aggressive character to the compositions. A fact that is more noticeable in the more mid-tempo songs, such as “Elitist”, the dark “Prescribing Horror”, “The Years of Death and Dying”. Also, all these features are motivated by Steve Souza’s raw vocals, who sounds raging.

EXODUS with “Persona Non Grata”, not only released one of the best albums of the year, but one of the best Thrash Metal albums of the recent years. This album has already taken its place quite high in the band’s discography, being the most qualitative album the band has offered since “Tempo of the Damned”. EXODUS sounds furious and reborn, as its members are going through a second adolescence. In 2021, after the retirement of the mighty SLAYER, the throne of Thrash Metal has new kings, as EXODUS invites us once again to a “lesson in violence”. And as the band states: “eleven albums and still not a single ballad”!!

Rating: 8/10
Editor: Nikos Manousis
Related Link: EXODUS – Official Page