ELECTROCUTIONER – Harbinger (Album Review)

Harbinger of the apocalypse.

Since its mid-80s rise to prominence, the San Francisco Bay Area has staked its claim as the original masters of thrash metal, but not without an equally loud and formidable challenge from said city’s New York rivals.

Among the bands maintaining the East Coast’s unique blend of raw aggression with a unique sense of melody is the Long Island trio Electrocutioner, who may also be in the running for the most insane expression of the sub-genre to grace the 2020s. Unmitigated speed and fury with a penchant for the end times is arguably the best way to distill the sonic message delivered by their sophomore and latest studio outing Harbinger, culminating in an album that could hold its own against the likes of Sodom’s Tapping The Vein and Demolition Hammer’s Epidemic Of Violence in terms of both pure intensity and quality songwriting.

Though the jury is out on whether this album can be qualified as a conceptual work, Harbinger presents the theme of Armageddon from ten unique perspectives, divided into two nearly equal chapters by a pair of ambient place holder tracks carrying the name “Vision” to achieve an almost cinematic sense of realism.

The pedal is kept to the proverbial metal from start to finish, presented in the explosive power trio format that was common to all three members of the Teutonic Trio (Sodom, Destruction, and Kreator) during their formative days. The harrowing assault accomplished by drummer Tyler Bogliole and bassist Rich Nieves lays the perfect foundation of auditory steel for the insane brilliance of guitarist/vocalist Mark Pursino to weave a highly intricate succession of bone-shattering riffs and impressive lead guitar gymnastics while also shrieking with the same caliber of sepulchral rage as Tom Angelripper circa 1987.

Each compact entry in this nuclear explosion of extreme thrash metal brilliantly walks a line between being a throwback to the style’s early flirtations with death metal territory and conforming to the modern character of the present scene. Short and speed-infused crushers like the opener “Doomsday Device” and “End Of Days” carry a lot of the frenetic qualities that one would expect out of the most insane offerings out of both the German and American scenes between 1987 and 1991, but also sees Bogliole throw in way more machine gun kick work and even a few blast beats that were far less common during thrash’s 80s and early 90s heyday.

Alongside similarly chaotic blurs of pure chaos like “Lightning Sacrifice” and 2025’s answer to Persecution Mania‘s “The Chariot”, these are the sort of fleeting thrashers that largely stick to 3 minutes in duration or less yet come packed with enough power to fill a song twice as long.

Naturally, there are occasions where Electrocutioner opts for a more drawn-out and controlled expression of thrashing intensity to tell their tales of the coming end. Though only slightly longer than the aforementioned entries, “Heaven’s Gate” takes a more mid-paced route and lays on the gang-vocals like their going out of style, meanwhile the more drawn out yet quick-paced “Frozen File” plays things more complexly and throws a healthy array of riffs at varying velocities before fading into an eerie atmospheric epilogue.

But insofar as moving into territory that could be construed as epic if it weren’t still contained in sub-5 minute territory, the title entry “Harbinger” and the technically charged final hurrah “Seven Seals Of Koresh” is where this trio proves their virtuoso musicianship and songwriting bona fides, transitioning from one section to the next with the seamlessness normally associated with classic era Forbidden, but with that continual extreme thrash sense of intensity.

It’s still a bit early in the game to be throwing around titles like album of the year, but as far as thrash metal goes in 2025, Electrocutioner have essentially gone from underground sensations to contenders for the crown in short order. Harbinger has all of the makings of a new classic, not to mention being an album chock-full of so many explosive moments that it all but transcends the confines of its adopted style.

This isn’t the sort of thrash that concerns itself with pizza, beer, partying, or any of the pleasantries that have all but become cliché in the sub-genre’s circles since the early 2010s, but rather the kind that scares the mainline crowd right off their skateboards and into the 9th layer of hell.

Think of it as something along the lines of what Heathen’s Victims Of Deception might have been were it to have been recorded in the style of Sodom and Demolition Hammer. But analogies aside, this is essential listening for every single mosh pit maniac still walking the planet.

Release Date: September 5th, 2025
Record Label: CDN Records
Genre: Thrash Metal

Musicians:

• Mark Pursino / Guitars, lead vocals
• Rich Nieves / Bass
• Tyler Bogliole / Drums

Harbinger Track-list:

1. Doomsday Device
2. Lightning Sacrifice
3. Heaven’s Gate
4. Frozen File
5. Harbinger
6. Final Prophet
7. Vision I
8. End of Days
9. The Chariot
10. Azazel
11. Seven Seals of Koresh
12. Vision II

Pre-order Harbinger here