MINOTAUR, Death Metal (1990, Remedy)

The skull:
Do these guys not know what bull horns look like? I know they’re thrashers and not farmers, but still. Or, did they think, “Who says we can’t have some other horned skull on our cover? We’re not married to Minotaurs just because we’re called Minotaur. Sodom doesn’t always have, like, dicks and butts and pillars of salt on their covers or whatever.” As horny skull dudes go, this guy is pretty cool, if totally generic. But as we’ll soon see, that’s completely appropriate for this band!

The music:
Despite the title, this is not death metal, but thrash. To be fair, there was a lot of confusion on that point in the late 80s/early 90s, although I don’t think anyone could have called this music “death metal” with a straight face even back then. This is an exact cross of Pleasure to Kill and Expurse of Sodomy. Minotaur adds precisely nothing to the Teutonic thrash formula, and singer Andi even splits the difference between Mille and Angelripper. So, if you like early Kreator and Sodom, you’ll probably like Minotaur. If you don’t, you won’t. Weirdly, for a cult band with a ton of demos and EPs and split 7″s, Minotaur have so far resisted compilation, so unless you want to trawl ebay for old vinyl and cassettes, you’ll have to content yourself with one of their two full-lengths, from 1988 and 2009. Probably that first one is alright, but I’d be pretty skeptical of the second.
— Friar Johnsen