PROTECTOR - Urm The Mad CD

Repress with slipcase added
Recorded August 1989 at Phoenix Studios, Bochum.

Live bonus tracks recorded in Braunschweig, Germany on May 1st 1989.

For whatever reason I don't tend to hear the name "Protector" mentioned all that often when people discuss early extreme metal (no, there's not a "proto-extreme" in this case; you're either in or you're out). However, I do think they are notably extreme enough to make the cut along with, say, other German luminaries such as Kreator, Destruction and Sodom (yes, those three once again). Perhaps it's worth noting that while those limelight-hogging trio largely gave up the extremity to their sound after their early records (with Sodom being the possible exception with their brief flirtation with death thrash on the Tapping the Vein album), Protector got a considerably harder-edge over time. Or, at least from what I've heard, they got heavier between their full-length debut, Golem, and this the ripping Urn the Mad.