Fabulous Desaster – Off With Their Heads – Album Review

If you didn’t know that the lads from Fabulous Desaster were from Bonn, Germany, then between their name and the music they play, you would swear you were dealing with the latest batch of “Bay Area Bangers”; such is the sheer level of riff worship aimed in the direction of San Francisco’s finest ever exports.

As you can probably guess, Off With Their Heads is so rooted in the mid 80’s it should come with a free pair of white high tops and skin tight jeans! Sadly, it doesn’t also come with the tunes to match the era.

While Off With Their Heads sounds reasonably well put together – Jan Niederstein and Matthias Terstegge are obviously more than decent guitarists who gel well together on the likes of “The Dealer”, “Eye For An Eye” and “The Revenge Of The Mighty Alouatta” – the problem with Off With Their Heads lies in the distinct lack of memorable tunes. The minute a song ends, it’s forgotten, with nothing truly sticking in the memory and instead of remembering the band, you find yourself  simply recalling Fabulous Desaster’s many influences.

With vocalist Jan Niederstein employing a sub-Petrozzian style bark that lacks any real intensity or conviction, the result is a release that lacks excitement….which is the last thing you want from a thrash album! While Off With Their Heads ain’t terrible, this kind of retro-obsessed, novelty-thrash needs something more to make it stand out from the feral frash pack. 5/10