15 Years of Thoughts Of No Tomorrow

This year marks the fifteenth anniversary of the debut album "Thoughts of No Tomorrow" by Swedish metal band Avatar. I've been a fan of them for a few years, but actually hadn't heard this album before, so I decided to check it out. Looking at the track listing, I don't think I'm even familiar with any of the songs, which is a shame. This album is great! It's a lot more thrashy than most of their newer music, like Johannes was just screaming and hadn't totally found his voice yet. Don't get me wrong, I still definitely enjoyed his vocals on this album, but they just weren't as refined as they are now, which is totally understandable. My favorite track is "My Shining Star", it's a bit more melodic and definitely shows Johannes experimenting a bit more. There's several really good guitar solos on this album as well. "Stranger" is a really cool song which features some almost medieval sounding woodwind instrument sounds and a gorgeous acoustic guitar line and some symphonic elements during the intro before jumping into a super kickass song with great riffs. "Sane?" is a really pretty instrumental piece that sort of sounds like the intro to "Stranger". Then they end on a great note with "Slave Mind Meltdown", which is just absolutely epic. I greatly enjoyed this album, and it's so great to hear where the band started and compare it to their more recent releases. This is a fantastic album and definitely worth checking out if you haven't heard it. ~Gangis