Assassin Are Back!
aaamusic | On 07, Jan 2011
Visceral German thrash metallers Assassin, who were briefly at the forefront of the awesome pack of ground-breaking German thrash metal bands which broke through in the early 1980’s, have reformed and resigned to SPV / Steamhammer, who will release their brand new studio album, ‘Breaking The Silence’, on February 28th 2011. Produced by Harris Johns (Kreator, Sodom, Voivod), ‘Breaking The Silence’ contains ten brand new, diamond edged, hard hitting mighty monsters of thrash metal songs, all tinged with Assassin’s trademark hybrid Speed / Thrash Metal / Hardcore sound.
Assassin, who formed in Dusseldorf in 1984, soon won over a sizeable live following and became the third thrash act to sign to Steamhammer / SPV – after Sodom and Destruction – when they inked a deal with the label in 1986. Assassin’s debut, self-produced album, ‘The Upcoming Terror’, sold over 15,000 copies on release in 1987. Their second album, ‘Interstellar Experience’, produced by Harris Johns, was ecstatically received and propelled Assassin even further into the upper echelons of the German Thrash Metal scene on release in 1988. Assassin were then invited to support Death Angel across Germany on a virtually sold-out tour, further swelling the ranks of their rapidly growing fan base. But disaster struck when, while working on the follow up to ‘Interstellar Experience’ at the end of 1989, the group’s rehearsal room was burgled and all their equipment was stolen. Assassin didn’t have any equipment insurance, so, lacking the funds to reinvest in new gear, and, having lost the will to continue, broke up shortly afterwards.
Fast forward to the end of 2002, when Assassin officially reformed and, cheered on by their die-hard fans’ chants of ‘Go! Fight! Kill’, triumphantly returned to the live arena. “It was like coming home” recalls singer Robert Gonella. In 2005, Assassin self – released ‘The Club’, their third album, produced by Michael Hoffman, (who was an official member of Sodom from 1990 to 1991), and began a relentless period of playing live all round their native Germany. In Spring 2010 Assassin played a series of shows in Asia, including several concerts in Japan, which were professionally recorded and filmed for future DVD release.
In Autumn 2010 Assassin signed a brand new deal with SPV / Steamhammer, who reunited the musicians with producer Harris Johns to record ‘Breaking The Silence’, a mighty, monumental slab of gut-wrenching metal that is now set to propel one of the most underrated bands of the German Thrash legion into the international limelight.
