mastered for vinyl by Patrick W. Engel/ Temple of Disharmony “Urm the Mad” was Protector’s sophomore album, recorded in the summer of 1989, again at the Phönix Studio in Bochum, where the four-piece from Wolfsburg had already recorded their killer full-length debut “Golem”. Still keeping the Golem-line up complete (though with some difficulties), Protector at that time consisted of Michael Hasse on drums, Hansi Müller on guitar, Ede Belichmeier on bass and Martin Missy on vocals, who had been in and out of the band and thus came a bit under stress once back in the game: “I had been out between march and early summer, so I wrote the lyrics to all the songs in a very short period of time.” That should not be the only change concerning the vocal position: “Urm the Mad” was to become the last album before the split in 2003 that features Martin Missy; he should be replaced by Olly Wiebel in December 1989. With this personal change still lying ahead of the band, the completion of “Urm the Mad” was decently celebrated: “I remember that a couple of friends from Wolfsburg came down to the studio in Bochum, and we had a big party after the recordings were all done.” Protector did not change too much about their style – genre-defining early thrash/death – but one of the most notable things about “Urm the Mad” was the sound, as Martin remembers: “The album has a very special sound. It's hard for me to describe it, though, because I don’t know that much about the technical side of recording.” So what is it about the sound then? “Urm the Mad” is famous for its heavy, noisy, dirty sound, for its raw production that makes the music all the more evil and menacing, with guitars in the front and Martin’s unmistakeable vocals lying on the riffs like poisonous mould. “Urm the Mad” is thrash metal walking the sinister path of death – or, into death metal. Some say that this album is closer to Celtic Frost’s “To Mega Therion” than to standard 80’s thrash metal. Protector’s special blend of thrash and death metal has always set them apart from their compatriots and even inspired German metal tabloid Rock Hard to declare Protector to be “Germany’s hardest band” – and this in 1989, the year both Kreator’s “Extreme Aggression” and Sodom’s “Agent Orange” were released! To a big part this was due to the decision against playing even faster and even more technical than on the previous outputs “Misanthropy” and “Golem” – on “Urm the Mad” Protector still play mainly fast and energetic thrash, but the overall feel of the album is that of creeping, lurking evil – crawling along on frequently slowed down, heavy riffs and Martin Missy’s sick death-like growls which seem to come straight from the charnel house. “Urm the Mad” does not sport that “positive” aggression usually found in 80’s thrash; on the contrary, the album is grim, dark and desperate, but nonetheless brutal and extreme. Again, Protector’s contribution to the then-proliferating Teutonic thrash was mainly recognized within the underground scene, and the band’s expectations for “Urm the Mad” were not really met, as Martin recalls: “Protector had earlier that year mounted their first proper tour (with Wehrmacht) and played in front of thousands of enthusiastic fans in Katowice / Poland. The hopes where quite high that this record could be our big breakthrough; unfortunately it wasn't, but I think it definitely further established our name in the underground scene.” The “official” metal press played its own part in keeping Protector a bit below the radar: “We got pretty much the same response as we got for ‘Golem’: Good, positive feedback from our fans and ‘ok’-reviews from the bigger metal magazines.” In the end, Martin Missy reveals the story behind the eponymous entity “Urm the Mad”: “I got the idea for the song ‘Urm the Mad’ while we were recording ‘Golem’ one year earlier. We were living in an apartment above the studio, and someone had stored a lot of magazines there. Among them I found a batch of Heavy Metal comics, some of them including a comic about Urm (“Urm le fou”, by Philippe Druillet). I liked the story so much that I decided to write some lyrics about it.” Ulrike Schmitz