Everything changes with time, especially music, with new bands emerging continuously. Some of them really make it through with modern, revolutionary, and refreshing sounds while others only manage to release a demo or two. Genres get more and more sub-genres and bands are harder to characterize or classify, but there are still people who want to go back in time to prove that old-school can still kick some serious a**;
Flesh Made Sin is one such band. Created in 1999 in the Netherlands,
Flesh Made Sin has taken the assignment to carry the thrash-metal flag with pride. They've taken matters into their own hands and have managed to deliver classic Euro-thrash, and by that I mean their style of thrash-metal is raw, very aggressive, pretty straight forward and not influenced by any modern metal music. There is definitely lots of early
Kreator influences, and this makes the band also sound very similar to the former extreme-thrashers
Hypnoisa and death-thrashers
Deathchain from Finland, except with a harsher and throatier vocal performance.
Flesh Made Sin have been fine during their metal process, and they have released two EP's or "MCD's" called
Scenery Of Death and
Masterwork In Blood, and they have also released an full-length album called
Dawn Of The Stillborn. If this band will sharpen their instrumental skills and perhaps eventually get a bit more variety in their material in a near future they will definitely be a thrash-metal band of your dreams.
[i]Dawn Of The Stillborn was released in 2004 and it launches a massive thrash-assault right in the listeners face. The band pumps out ferocious and tight guitar work, blistering solos, fast and accurate drumming and death-thrash throaty vocals. This album does not let you take it easy, and just by listening to the merciless opening track called
Crowned In Torment, it will basically give you the whole perspective of the whole album. Here you have non-stop old-school thrash in extreme mode, and while there might be a quite noticeable repetitive warning regarding the entire album material, you should still enjoy this if you are highly dedicated to old-school thrash a la'
Kreator, The vocals are a bit harsher and they sometimes balance between thrash and old-school death-metal vocals, and most drum parts are pretty much the same: blast beats and mid-paced drumming. Those two styles are present almost all the time but the drumming is not totally one-dimensional. The guitars and bass play alongside each other, and they create many different types of old-school thrash riffs, both intensive shredding and somewhat technical riffs a little now and then. The guitar solos are very enthrilling, with them being chaotic, fast and technical. Judging by their earlier achievements, they follow the ancestors of thrash-metal bands and deliver lyrics based on violence, death, etc. I said before that the album had some repetitive material but there are some definitive highlight tracks on this album, such as
Possess The Flesh with its very crunchy and technical guitar work, bone crushing and varied drumming and how it commands you to head bang.
The Cleansing also stands out with its
Slayer-sounding intro and riff structure, rapid firing vocals and plain overall heaviness.
Ritual Of The Dead is yet another track that I think stands out more than the other tracks, most because of its highly aggressive structure and sound, its sinister atmosphere and of course the technicality in the instrumental performance.
While some bands try to develop new revolutionary styles and sounds, others want to revive the past; both of these tasks are not easy to perform though. Sometimes the result can be groundbreaking and sometimes it can be a complete belly flop, but
Flesh Made Sin performs this revolutionary metal genre with minimum problems. There are not many things that plague this album; if there would be something that would drag this album down a bit, it would be the repetitive material and perhaps the slightly lack of overall variety. Many of the songs have tempo changes, varied guitar work, which is a good thing but sometimes it feels like the band were thinking
too straight forward when they created this album. This is, though, their first full-length album after all and they play with passion for metal so it would be wrong to criticize them too hard at this moment, but if there was a bit more technicality in the guitar work, a clearer bass sound and more variety in the drum work this could've been a blazing thrash album. But old-school is old-school, and it is played in a certain way and
Flesh Made Sin does it with skill, love, determination.
Even thought its been almost twenty or twenty-five years since thrash-metal invaded the world of music, there are still people who want to bring back the past.
Flesh Made Sin is a very promising band for the thrash-metal genre, and while they might not be a groundbreaking band when it comes to innovation and musical talent, they deliver music from heart and soul! This album is highly recommended to people who like old-school thrash-metal like early
Kreator and other modern styles of extreme thrash like
Hypnosia or early
Raise Hell.
Pros
+ An energetic, raw and aggressive thrash album
+ Definitely old-school thrash-metal
+ Crunchy and catchy guitar work
+ A great album to head bang to
Cons
- Repetitive material
- Perhaps a bit bad variety in the drum work
Recommended Tracks
-- Possess The Flesh
-- The Cleansing
-- Ritual Of The Dead
-- Dawn Of The Stillborn
This album will be given a solid 4/5
