Empires of Inhumanity

Personnel: Moloch (guitar, background vocals); Michel "Drumsau" Domaing (drums).Recording information: Music Lab, Berlin (2009-2010).Europe has seen the emergence of quite a few retro-thrash bands in the 21st century -- bands that didn't exist before the 2000s or early 2010s but go out of their way to emulate the thrash bands of the 1980s. Germany's Fatal Embrace, however, cannot be lumped in with Europe's 21st century retro-thrash movement; they have been around since 1993 and celebrated their 17th anniversary in 2010. The year 1993, of course, was a time of serious upheaval in the rock world; alternative rock had become rock's primary direction, and so many '80s headbangers were disappearing from MTV. But thrash had something in common with alt-metal: a strong punk influence. Punk is the element that alt-metal, industrial metal, death metal, black metal, and metalcore all have in common, and there is no shortage of punk influence on Empires of Inhumanity. Recalling a time when metal