Rigor Mortis-Vs. The Earth

Came across an album cover that just screamed old school thrash in Half-Price Books a month ago (before I sold my collection):



It was a Metal Mind reissue and knowing that those become OOP very quickly and it was only about $10, I took a chance. My instinct was correct, great old school thrash (crossover style). Very catchy thrash with awesome guitar work and scruffy shouting (borderline death vocals) vocals akin to Slayer's Tom Araya. Anybody else familiar with this?

Mentioned this elsewhere, but I love finding a good old-school thrash bands on blind buys. The new crop of thrash just doesn't come close to what I discover with old bands.

Never heard the album above but I remember their self titled debut, which was released on Capitol Records (!) back in the day... unlike a lot of thrash bands at the time, they hadn't released anything on an indie prior to getting snapped up by a major, which was unusual... everyone was like "Who the hell are these guys and why are they on Capitol Records?"



Fun fact: On the 80s TV series "Doogie Howser M.D.," Doogie had a poster of this album cover on his bedroom wall. Funny, he didn't strike me as a thrasher.

Fun fact #2: Rigor Mortis bassist Casey Orr went on to portray "Beefcake the Mighty" in GWAR..

Fat Freddy wrote:

Never heard the album above but I remember their self titled debut, which was released on Capitol Records (!) back in the day... unlike a lot of thrash bands at the time, they hadn't released anything on an indie prior to getting snapped up by a major, which was unusual... everyone was like "Who the hell are these guys and why are they on Capitol Records?"



Fun fact: On the 80s TV series "Doogie Howser M.D.," Doogie had a poster of this album cover on his bedroom wall. Funny, he didn't strike me as a thrasher.

Fun fact #2: Rigor Mortis bassist Casey Orr went on to portray "Beefcake the Mighty" in GWAR..

Also if I'm not mistaken, the guitarist went on to be with Ministry.

Also, they are hometown thrashers. They came from the Dallas/Ft. Worth area. Turns out I have heard them before on a compilation:

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Also if I'm not mistaken, the guitarist went on to be with Ministry.

I believe you're correct. I was never much of a Ministry fan but yeah, that sounds familiar.

Fat Freddy wrote:

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Also if I'm not mistaken, the guitarist went on to be with Ministry.

I believe you're correct. I was never much of a Ministry fan but yeah, that sounds familiar.

Me neither, but when I make a blind purchase, I research it to make sure I didn't screw myself. I was almost always lucky enough that my blind purchases turned up good stuff. Out of dozens of blind purchases, only 2-3 ever turned out to be duds. Now that I'm switching to digital (against my original intent, necessity has caused me to take it this direction) blind purchases will be pretty much a thing of the past.

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blind purchases will be pretty much a thing of the past.

Join the club. Ever since I got all Married With Children 'n' stuff, I barely have $$ for the CDs that I want to get, so blind buying sh*t went right out the window

I have the first record(which I love), but I don't have this one. I've heard some songs that are on it. They had a different singer on this record than on their debut.

They actually had two singers on this record. Some songs were sung by Doyle Bright, and some of them were sung by Casey Orr (also their bassist).

Yeah,like Freddy all I remember is the self titled album.

A couple more fun facts:
Original singer Bruce Corbitt now sings for Warbeast.Guitarist Doyle Bright plays with Hallows Eve and mike Scaccia just passed away not too long ago.

I love this cd!! Always a great listen. Some of the pre-song/post-song "sampling" is awesome. Plus they do a great Ramones cover.

I'm only familiar with them for the one track they had on the Decline of Western Civilation Part II soundtrack. Which was odd since I don't recall the band or the song featured in the movie whatsoever.



I know I didn't care for it much back in the day, but I've come to appreciate more nowadays. I have that first Warbeast disc too, but I haven't listened to it in some time. Need to remedy that.

Fun Fact #???: according to a poster on YouTube under this video, this song was featured in the Hulk Hogan classic 'Mr. Nanny'. Don't know that to be true or not and I'm not about to find out.

They were one of those rare bands where my skate rat friends and I would agree on.  About wore that tape out.  I finally got sick of waiting for the price to come down on the S/T disc and last year got it off Itunes with a gift card.  Would still love to find a copy.

I did get real lucky and scored a copy of VS. The Earth when importcds had a amazon price glitch.  Think I paid 4 shipped.  Got a bunch of Metal Mind releases and some horror blus that way.  Never thought they wouldn't cancel the order but they honored it.  Months later I scored Freaks for about 4 bucks also.

Must be something in the water in the DFW area since a bunch of great, and very original, bands hail from there.

Scaccia was also a part of one of my favorite side project bands Lard.

The first Rigor Mortis album is one of my all-time faves. Re-purchased the CD about 10 years ago off ebay from Casey Orr. Fun Fact appendage-Casey has joined Bruce Corbitt in Warbeast. Will be seeing them, and hopefully getting that CD signed, when Warbeast takes part in this years Gwar-B-Q.

Yet another fun fact: around the same time the Texas Rigor Mortis debuted, there was also a New York area death metal band by that name. They eventually became Immolation.

MetalGuy71 wrote:

I'm only familiar with them for the one track they had on the Decline of Western Civilation Part II soundtrack. Which was odd since I don't recall the band or the song featured in the movie whatsoever.



I know I didn't care for it much back in the day, but I've come to appreciate more nowadays. I have that first Warbeast disc too, but I haven't listened to it in some time. Need to remedy that.

Fun Fact #???: according to a poster on YouTube under this video, this song was featured in the Hulk Hogan classic 'Mr. Nanny'. Don't know that to be true or not and I'm not about to find out.

It was.