Tankard

Best Case Scenario 25 Years in Beers

Locomotive Records 2008

Germany's beer-soaked traditional thrashers, Tankard are celebrating their 25th anniversary in memorable fashion.  Tankard have carefully hand selected songs from their entire catalogue to give an updated rerecording treatment to.  Normally I would be against this spoiling of the original gems (i.e. Destruction) but for some reason in this case I don't mind.  Perhaps that I can still see the reckless joy shine through in each of the rerecorded classics.  Great choices have been made as well when it comes to song selection.  Illustrating the party hard attitude and unserious beer drinking glee that Tankard are best known for they play tracks like (Empty) Tankard, Chemical Invasion, Beermuda and My favorite, Space Beer!!!  For those unfamiliar with Tankard (Shame on You firstly!)  their style is pure Germanic thrash that sounds somewhat along the lines of Assassin, Exumer, and Darkness rather than the holy trinity of Teutonic thrash, Destruction, Sodom, and Kreator.  The German lyrics and the gang chorus of Freibier paints a picture of a town square full of beer chugging metalheads during a weekend celebration of metal and alcohol.  This CD is a two disk set with a second CD of Tankard covers performed by other bands in the scene such as Paradox, Sacred Steel, and so on.  Unfortunately I didn't get this disk with the promo so I cannot comment on it but it sounds like a great idea.  Best Case Scenario illustrates why Tankard have been such an enduring fixture in the German metal scene.  Uniting the two complimentary worlds of metal and alcohol, Tankard bring a pure and untainted joy to their music.  Here's hoping they exist for another 25 years!  Now let's go drink some Space Beer!!!!!