A Review of the 2005 Groovy Thrash Metal Album "Alcohol Anthems" by Mental Care Foundation

1. Headtrip
2. Death Lasts a Lifetime
3. All the Same
4. Pain
5. The Turnover
6. Down the Line
7. Unpredicted
8. Hate Avenue
9. Alone
10. My Real World
11. Move Forward

Mental Care Foundation is a band that most people in the heavy metal community would not know about. They are a groovy thrash metal band from Kokkola, Finland. They were formed in 2003 and released their debut album Alcohol Anthems in 2005. Think of these guys like Pantera except there are no intricate melodies in this album. Vocalist Henrik Klingenberg has a harsh shouting style that I actually enjoy listening to. The band cites Pantera, Testament, and Slayer as their influences. However, I believe that Mental Care Foundation suffers from a lack of depth and creativity in their music. What was the band’s goal when they wrote this album? It certainly sounds like a thrash metal album, but the speed is mid-tempo most of the time. On the other end of the extreme, bands such as Slayer use speed exclusively in their music. There has to be a balance when you write songs in an album. This album is lacking that balance I am referring to. If you enjoyed reading about Finnish thrash metal band Mokoma, let me say that Mental Care Foundation is nowhere near as good as those guys. Mokoma have lots of hooks in their songs. Henrik Klingenberg has also played keyboards for the Finnish power metal band Sonata Arctica.

One example is the sub-standard song called Pain. It has a lot of shouting by Klingenberg and lots of mid-tempo riffing but that’s pretty much it. The album does have a pretty good beginning with the song Headtrip. I hear some Annihilator style soloing in this one. One thing that is prevalent in the album is that the solos have a blues style and influence to them. The Turnover starts with bass guitar play and then it turns into another generic thrash metal song. But it gets a little better with the song called Down the Line. This is the first song that I heard from Mental Care Foundation and it is one of those really groovy songs that you can really get into. Guitarist Jeff Waters would probably enjoy this one because it is pretty freaking heavy! He is a fan of those heavy kinds of songs for sure. Mental Care Foundation is similar to Finnish thrash metal band Hateframe. Unpredicted is a song about a person that doesn’t know what to do with his life. He feels that he is drifting aimlessly without direction. This song is just average. There is heavier riffing and the guitar tone sounds kind of dirty. Henrik Klingenberg is a decent vocalist for this type of groovy thrash metal. My Real World has a pretty good solo and is one of these thrash songs that has some kind of different feel to it so I will give it credit for that.

The best songs in the album are Headtrip, Down the Line, Unpredicted, Hate Avenue, and My Real World. What is the final word on this album? For those that are die-hard thrash metal fans, you will find it hard if not impossible to love this album. If you are a heavy metal fan that enjoys listening to different kinds of heavy metal, then you might like the music from Mental Care Foundation.

Alcohol Anthems gets a 72 out of 100 points from this writer as of June 2020. Some of you might be asking what happened for the change in the album’s rating? For one thing, the album isn’t as sub-par as once thought. The solos particularly the blues style solo in the song My Real World deserves consideration. Right now, the album Alcohol Anthems gets a score in the 70s instead of the 60s or the 50s because there is just enough good material to be considered acceptable even for fans of groovy thrash.