Cover art by Courtney Trowbridge
Logo design by Garret Ross
Style: Thrash Metal, Progressive Metal (harsh vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Trivium, Orbit Culture, Sylosis
Country: USA (California)
Release date: 25 April 2025
Modern thrash metal is always hit or miss, and for good reason; the genre has been around nearly as long as metal itself has existed as a broader style of music. One could (and many do!) argue that all of the good ideas have already been taken, and that anything released after some arbitrary point in the 90’s is derivative slop. This does not stop bands from trying their hand at the style though, often introducing outside influence in an attempt to spice things up. Wisdom & Fools are one such group, a California based progressive thrash metal duo who describes Prophecy on their bandcamp page as “36 minutes of breathtaking modern thrash.” Well, I quite like many a modern progressive thrash metal album, and my respiratory rhythm has been far too stable for far too long if you ask me. Maybe a debut by some young blood in the scene is just what I need in lieu of an asthma flare up. Can Prophecy match the thrilling exhilaration of a particularly intense coughing fit? The short answer is no. The long answer is contained within Prophecy’s 36 minutes of undercooked thrash metal writing.
Within the first minute and a half of its runtime, Prophecy already comes across as disjointed and half-baked. Starting with the aptly named “Escaping Eden,” titled—I assume—after the track making whatever I was doing just before hitting play seem like paradise in comparison. A mid tempo 16th note tremolo awkwardly kicks things off, stumbling towards one of the most boring thrash riffs I’ve heard in a long while, and culminating in what I think is supposed to be a chorus but could also just be a bad metalcore breakdown. On a cursory listen, the fumbled songwriting may be redeemed somewhat by the proficient and at times even impressive performances, but they fail to bring any real staying power.
Wisdom & Fools’ guitar and vocal duties are handled by Philip Vargas, who is equally competent at both, and whose riffs are often mirrored by bandmate John Ramirez’s bass rumblings. The two have good chemistry, though the lack of a live drummer ends up dragging both of them down. Vargas’ vocal performance sounds like a mix between Ihsahn and New American Gospel-era Randy Blythe (Lamb of God); it’s a surprisingly versatile timbre, but the performance ends up being disappointingly monotone as Vargas never seems to take full advantage of his range. Both members seem to have handled production duties, and they’ve done a decent job at it, though it is quite loud and similarly exacerbated by the programmed drums.
As “Escaping Eden” plods along, revealing Wisdom & Fools’ performative quirks, it also betrays their so-called “progressive” take on thrash metal, which boils down to phrases having extra beats tacked on at the end. Sure, it works the first few times, but eventually you come to expect it, and the “progressive” elements become stale and predictable. “Children of Disgrace” is somehow even more lacking in the songwriting department. Stilted thrash riffs trudge ahead and culminate in another chorus that misses the mark, except the chorus here is much worse; the intro riff comes back, but boringly simplified for some reason, and the band completely drops out at the apex of the phrase, killing all momentum only for the vocalist to rasp out the title of the song as if it were made by a 2000s hip-hop producer. “The Devil in a House of God” continues the trend of questionable choruses, this time with a riff that is lifted straight out of Celtic Frost’s “Into the Crypts of Rays,” which just confuses me more than anything. The ending of the song, though, is the first moment on Prophecy that made my ears perk up, because Wisdom & Fools stops playing riffs for a moment and focuses on an ostinato melody in the lead guitar with descending power chords providing a nice harmonic context. It turns out Wisdom & Fools actually have a knack for simple yet effective melodic development, and moments like this pop up periodically over the rest of Prophecy’s runtime, though they are not quite enough to salvage the banal thrash writing they accompany.
The title track has the most potential as a thrash metal song proper, housing some of the better actual riffs on Prophecy, but is once again dragged down by the programmed drums. Prophecy’s drum parts are stilted and awkward, settling into beats that are impossible to get used to despite their repetition. One gets the sense that these drum parts were not written by a drummer, and most of the problems with Prophecy could be dampened or straight up solved by just getting a live drummer and a bit more of an intimate production. The back half of Prophecy is thankfully better than the front, but this is because Wisdom & Fools seem to forget that they are supposed to be a thrash metal band, and start writing metalcore songs that just kind of flirt with thrash metal techniques. Really, Prophecy sounds like a metalcore outfit who set out with the intention to write a raging thrash metal record, but ran out of steam halfway through and resorted back to writing metalcore. “Divinity” through “Perpetuals” is a decent run of songs when compared to the rest of the lot, and proves that Wisdom & Fools strengths lie in their melodic sensibilities, not awkward thrash riffs. Unfortunately, this streak doesn’t last, and Prophecy ends leaving a sour taste in my mouth with the unnecessary, derivative, and aptly named “Husk”.
At the end of the day, Wisdom & Fools lack the bite that is required of this style of music, and even the occasional inspired lead guitar line isn’t enough to save them. The thrash riffs are mediocre, and the programmed drums drag the entire experience down even further. As it stands, Prophecy is an underdeveloped debut with lots of room to grow, though I’m worried that, in this case, dredging through the mud in search of pearls may not be a worthwhile endeavor.
Recommended tracks: Prophecy, Divinity, Thorns
You may also like: Death Mex, Arsena, Venus
Final verdict: 3.5/10
Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Facebook | Metal-Archives page
Label: Okända Öden Records – Bandcamp
Wisdom & Fools is:
– John Ramirez – Bass, Production
– Philip Vargas – Guitars, Vocals, Production
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