Celebrating 35 Years of Dark Angel’s Leave Scars

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Sitting in between 2 monstrous, all-time classic thrash albums such as Darkness Descends and Time Does Not Heal is no easy task…but then Dark Angel‘s Leave Scars was never an easy album in the first place!

As claustrophobic as it is brutal, on Leave Scars Dark Angel were clearly beginning to embrace a more progressive aesthetic (particularly on the labyrinthine “The Promise of Agony) while maintaining the ferocity that marked out their debut as one of the all-time great thrash albums (get a load of the savage “Never to Rise Again”).

The result was an uncomfortable experience – not least due to its muddied production – that was extreme in every sense of the word. In fact, for the time, Leave Scars was one of the most overwhelmingly aggressive thrash albums on the market and its impact has not diminished in the intervening years.

What Leave Scars may have lacked in melody it more than made up for in bludgeoning intent, with opener “The Death of Innocence” providing a more succinct entry point while, as already mentioned, the expansive and audacious likes of “The Promise Of Agony” and the title track satisfied those thrashers who craved more than a little tech with their thrash!

35 years on and Leave Scars is still one of the most ferocious thrash albums you could ever wish to encounter. Happy Birthday you vicious little bastard!!

Dark Angel‘s Leave Scars was released on January 24th 1989.

Tracklist:

1.	“The Death of Innocence”	Hoglan, Durkin	3:49
2.	“Never to Rise Again”	Hoglan, Durkin, Ron Rinehart	3:55
3.	“No One Answers”	Hoglan, Durkin	7:50
4.	“Cauterization” (Instrumental)	Hoglan, Durkin	7:20
5.	“Immigrant Song” (Led Zeppelin cover)	Jimmy Page, Robert Plant	1:47
6.	“Older Than Time Itself”	Hoglan, Durkin	6:59
7.	“Worms” (Instrumental)	Hoglan, Durkin	2:18
8.	“The Promise of Agony”	Hoglan, Durkin	8:25
9.	“Leave Scars”	Hoglan, Durkin	7:40