Review Summary: faux thrash
This album is lame. As a thrash metal fan, and hearing this was a thrash record from the other reviews here, i went in optimistic and ready to thrash. I was expecting chode tingling riffs and hard metal trems, and while this album does have them in a few odd places, the riffs are mostly generic and dull. I'm not really sure why this is classed as thrash anyway, there is definitely some elements of modern thrash and melodeath, but really this is uninspired metalcore. The vocals are definitely the worst part about the album, they are monotonous as *** and really annoying, think Matt Heafy..in other words, gay. The previous vocalist who i'm not a fan of also, fitted in the band much better than this diltch, and just when you thought it couldnt get any worse, he starts with the ***ty cleans. I didnt even check the lyrics but they probably suck dick too. The guitar playing is good, but nothing really stands out apart from the odd catchy lead doodle. Like the sweep/tapping riff in Empyreal is cool sounding, but in the end its just another stabwound, technical but no ***ing passion. His playing is definitely above par for this type of music though. Maybe the riffs along with a decent vocalist could sound ok, but he just sucks all the good out of everything. To describe the album the best i can, take Trivium and add in a few atmospheric sections and simple run of the mill thrashy verses..yep thats it. Like most ***ty modern metal albums the bass is non existent. the drums are ok, satisfactory, they do the job. The album has a few calmer sections with soft harmonious guitars to try and create the illusion of diversity, but they just bore and plod along directionless. The acoustic outro to Dystopia is a good example, why is it there? Oh and did i mention the vocalist sucks dicks? I would talk more about the songs but they are mostly all very similarly structured.. thrashy verse, catchy chorus with awful vocals and pointless drawn out bridge sections. Seriously WHERE IS THE ***ING THRASH. It seems most of the people saying silly things such as "A modern thrash classic" is because the closest thing to thrash they've heard is As I Lay Dying so thats what they compare this to, so it makes sense in that regard i guess.
While this album isnt terrible, minus the vocals which are, it doesnt do anything new, special, thrash hard, pretty much anything positive. Its just so damn forgettable, but i guess its more interesting than bands like Bullet for my Valentine if thats any compliment at all. Basically this band is Trivium if they listened to Exodus one time and said "hey! if we throw some thrash trems into verses of our songs people will think were thrash and not generic metalcore!", well they were wrong, hard. Want some great modern thrash? Listen to Vektor.
