Strychnia - Reanimated Monstrosity

If you didn’t catch my review of Strychnia’s debut full-length, that’s okay, because it’s this EP that needs our attention first. This relatively young thrash death band really took me by surprise with their energetic style that manages to have the catchy grooves that thrash metal carries while still maintaining the brutality that comes with death metal. Apparently, the band has gone through some lineup changes since the release of their debut, so the first thing that they had to do after getting a solidified lineup was record some metal. Instead of going the whole nine yards and going straight to writing a full-length, Strychnia give us a four-song sample of what they’ve become to keep us occupied while they work on more music and possibly some touring. And honestly, I think that this was a great idea because this helps solidify the lineup even more so that there will hopefully be less confusion in the future.

Strychnia did a good job at not making a piece of perfection with their debut, because that would raise the bar a little too high and possibly even out of reach for their next album. For this new EP, they have improved in some areas, but only a little. This is okay because they’re already amazing to begin with, and this is a fucking EP, it’s not supposed to be amazing, so they’ve still left some elbow room for their sophomore full-length.

Kevin’s vocals have taken a slight change in direction. And, to be honest, I’m not really digging it as much as the vocals in The Anatomy of Execution. In Reanimated Monstrosity, the vocalist primarily uses mid-range growls. He’s one of the best new extreme metal vocalists that I’ve heard in years; his pitch range is substantial. But in this EP, most of what he does is sort of in the middle of his range. The mid-range growls that he does are very nasty and gritty, which are really cool, but it’s replaced A LOT of the growls that were done in The Anatomy of Execution. So hopefully, we will get to hear more of those brutal deep growls in the next release. The vocals on this album definitely have a lot of emotion and rage (not something you hear very much anymore), but they feel less satisfying due to the lack of deep growls.

But the quality of the overall instrumentation helps make up for the slight vocal letdown. Strychnia definitely takes a bit of influence from the deathcore genre; and you can tell because all of the musicians playing together are much better than the musicians individually. The individual musicians on this EP are surprisingly good for a bunch of yanks from New Jersey, and each of them take a little time to solo and prove their skill to you. Like I just said, their best quality is not something each of them have, it’s what they all have as a whole. This is something that’s very common in deathcore. That’s why you don’t hear very many solos or other fancy shit from most deathcore bands; because they sound better as a BAND than a bunch of musicians playing simultaneously. Even in the thrash death genre, DevilDriver and Malevolent Creation owe their popularity to the fact that their #1 skill is the ability to be a BAND.

The last point that I would like to make has to do with one of my favorite bands, Dying Fetus. Let me direct you to the first song (also the title track). There are two breakdowns in this song that sound like a carbon copy of one of the breakdowns off of Dying Fetus’ Destroy the Opposition album. Citing influences for bands is not something that I like to do because, well, I can’t know for sure if a band is an influence unless it’s been specifically stated by the band being influenced themselves. But then again, it’s kind of hard to hear these two breakdowns and NOT think DYING FETUS. Whether or not they were trying to make something with a Dying Fetus vibe, it’s a fantastic addition that I didn’t see coming. But what I’m worried about is that they’ll overuse this thing and use it in every song in the future; not a good idea.

Strychnia started off in 2011 by pointing in the right direction. Now, two years later, we have physical and audible proof that they have continued to go in that right direction. And seeing how genuine these musicians are, it wouldn’t be an unsafe prediction to say that they will most likely continue to go in that direction. Besides the vocals that I have a harder time fully enjoying, everything else about the record is good, but didn’t quite tear up the earth as much as I would like. The songs, although flawless, are also not quite as memorable as a lot of the ones on their first record. But regardless of any of that, this is an EP that’s more than worth the money it costs to obtain it and I would highly recommend this to any fan of extreme metal. I would give this EP 17/20. 

Thousand Foot Krutch - The End is Where We Begin

The End is Where We Begin is Thousand Foot Krutch’s most recent and most publicized release. It’s really hard to classify these guys because they’ve spent the duration of their careers hopping back and forth across the line between hard rock and nu metal. Some of their albums are pure hard rock, and some of them are downright heavy nu metal. This seems to be the first album where they decide to find a balance between the two somewhat similar styles and do what they can to implement an equal amount of both into their music. I’ve never really been the biggest fan of these guys, but I’ve known about them for a while and I’ve enjoyed a few of their songs that popped up on random compilations that have come my way in the past. When I saw that they released this album, I figured that it wouldn’t hurt to check this out. After checking this one out, it turned into “checking out” all of the other albums that they’ve released. Oh yeah, speaking of nu metal, what happened?

Remember the first decade after the millennium (2000-2010) when nu metal EXPLODED in popularity and EVERYONE was listening to it? Bands like Godsmack, Korn, Drowning Pool, System of a Down, Slipknot, Saliva, Otep, Linkin Park, Mudvayne, Disturbed, Sevendust, Deftones, and Papa Roach were at the top of the food chain (and some still are) and some were releasing amazing and classic albums that many metalheads, including myself, fell for. This first decade of the 2000s was where nu metal ruled the metal genre; as hard as it may be for some people to believe or accept, it’s true. During this time Thousand Foot Krutch did not become the instant hit that some thought they would become. Instead, they took a gradual climb in both musical quality and popularity. Around the year 2008, the nu metal genre had already started to slow down. Godsmack went on an indefinite hiatus, System of a Down had split, Linkin Park had gone in a completely different musical direction, Mudvayne sort of evaporated after the release of their self-titled in 2009 due to their vocalist getting distracted with his other nu metal band, Hellyeah, and bands like Drowning Pool, Sevendust, Papa Roach, and Saliva had pretty much been forgotten about by most people.

Now that these monstrous bands are decreasing in sales, popularity, and overall publicity, the somewhat lesser-known bands that had spent this time under their shadows started to shine. Five Finger Death Punch, Hellyeah, Ill Nino, Stone Sour, Coal Chamber, Chevelle, and Thousand Foot Krutch suddenly exploded in popularity out of nowhere. The funny thing is…the sound of their music isn’t really any different than most of the other nu metal and hard rock bands out there. Thousand Foot Krutch, like 80% of the other bands that ride along that line between nu metal and hard rock, has always been nothing more than a carbon copy of what Creed was during the time that they released their first three albums. So if you think about it, it’s not the nu metal genre as a whole that has taken a fall…it’s just the REALLY big bands that have decreased in fame and the popular and underground bands that have continued to live on, some taking the newly vacant spots formerly occupied by the top dogs during that ten year period.

If you’re familiar with this genre and what the majority of the bands that come from it sound like, you already know what the new Thousand Foot Krutch album sounds like. Unlike most of my friends that stopped respecting and listening to nu metal years ago, I still have a handful of nu metal bands that I continue to listen to and enjoy to the fullest. So since I still see some quality in the genre, I’m still able to recognize good nu metal when I hear it and be able to separate it from the shitty nu metal. For me, about 70% of nu metal bands fall in the fuzzy area between these two extremes. They don’t really have any super disappointing qualities about them, they play the genre well, they know what they’re doing, but there’s a complete absence of anything that could possibly give them a boost or make them sound unique or ambitious. This is what Thousand Foot Krutch is; just bland.

I guess you could say that they’re unique because they can’t seem to decide between hard rock and nu metal, but even that isn’t saying much because THERE ARE ALREADY HUNDREDS OF BANDS THAT ARE DOING THE EXACT SAME FUCKING THING AND HAVE BEEN SINCE THE TURN OF THE FUCKING CENTURY!! It pisses off people like me that go through this genre searching for bands that ARE unique and ARE ambitious, especially since this is a band that has been around since 1995…THAT’S ALMOST 20 YEARS. With that said, it’s obvious that these guys are more than comfortable right where they are and don’t have any ambitions to push themselves musically because they’re so wrapped up in their lyrical themes which I’m not in any rush to discuss. Not only do I not care about a band’s lyrical themes, I don’t want to say anything about these guy’s lyrics because of the uproar of controversy it will cause; and we get enough of that bullshit on the internet enough (Sputnik Music, anyone?).

Anyways, if you look at this album and compare it to the rest that the genre has to offer, you can’t because it’ll blend in with everything else before you have the chance to compare and contrast. When compared to the rest of their discography, this is definitely one of their strongest releases, and, in my opinion, is the best album that they’ve released. There really isn’t anything in particular that I don’t like about this album. The singing is great, the vocal harmonizing is cool, the band is tight, all of the members do their part, they stay true to the genre, and they do a good job of contrasting sounds by throwing down really heavy shit and releasing some softer tracks to even things out. If you’re really into this type of music, then you’re going to love this album. As for me, I’m giving it a 10/20, right in the mediocre area where it belongs. 

Blood Red Throne - Blood Red Throne

One of Norway’s biggest death metal bands is back with a self-titled album. Due to the extended relations both former and past members have in the black metal genre, Blood Red Throne has grown to be one of the much more respected pure death metal bands amongst the black metal fanbase. Well, apparently, Blood Red Throne’s release of Brutalitarian Regime in 2011 passed by without me knowing about it, so the last thing that I’ve heard from these guys is their 2008 album, Souls of Damnation. As if that wasn’t enough to make me feel disconnected, the lineup of the band is completely different now than it was in 2008, except for founding member and guitarist, Død. I looked through the lineup to see if any of the members are or were in any bands that I know, and their drummer caught my eye. Not only is drummer Emil Wiksten not even from Norway (he’s Swedish), he’s the drummer of the internationally popular death metal band Aeon. Although I don’t consider him to be anything outstanding, he is one of the more creative and unique traditional death metal drummers out there. But this guy isn’t the only highlight of this record.

The vocalist is, for me, the biggest change that this band has gone through. I loved the deep, moist sound that their previous vocalist had, but in retrospect, he didn’t have much of a pitch range. His vocals also sounded a little too relaxed and emotionless a lot of the time. The new vocalist, originally from this thrash metal band called Concussion that lasted for about two and a half years or so, has fucking range. And after doing some shallow digging, it seems that I’m not the only one that’s the first to hear this guy on a Blood Red Throne album because…this is the first time he’s ever been on one! Well, anyways, this guy is fucking amazing. The first thing you hear from him is an extremely high-pitched earsplitting black metal-styled shriek. Being used to the guttural growls from Souls of Damnation and Come Death, this is alien to me. Then, after the band takes some time to pull you into their catchy groove, the vocalist pummels you with his demonic growls. His growls sound nothing like the ones on any of the band’s previous albums, which is what forces you to realize that the Blood Red Throne that you once knew is no more; Blood Red Throne is back, and this album with its new sound is proof that nothing will stand in their way for very long.

Souls of Damnation won my heart over because it wasn’t pure death metal brutality. It has some of the catchiest grooves and tempos that have ever been pulled off in this particular genre. This element of their sound is what I identify with the most when I think of these guys. When I listen to Blood Red Throne, I love to hear the shit that I can nod my head along to while I’m doing my other work. This new piece of material never fails to that for even a single second. All nine tracks on this album are filled with those catchy guitar chugs and drum lines, even though the people that are playing them here are not the same people that were playing them in 2008. If I were to pick out two songs from this album that express the most of this element, I would pick Torturewhore and Exoneration Manifesto. Torturewhore is also one of the songs where the bassist and the drummer steal the spotlight. The frilly taps that the drummer does on the ride cymbals along with the crazy fills and the extremely tight kick drum work sold me on the spot. When I heard this song, I knew that this album will be on my “best albums of 2013” list at the end of the year.

I also love how the bassist is much more audible than in most traditional death metal stuff. It seems that in a lot of the recent death metal albums being released, including the past four Cannibal Corpse albums, the bass guitar is much less audible because of the increased volume of the overpowering distorted guitars. There are some bands where the only way you can really tell how skilled their bassist really is, to be honest, is to see the band live (The Black Dahlia Murder, Veil of Maya, Trollfest, The Agonist, etc.). That’s how bad it is sometimes. The way I like it, is when you can hear every member without anyone overpowering each other. But then again, there are appropriate times for certain instruments to step out of the light or for a certain member to take the frontline.

The song Exoneration Manifesto shows you the capability of their bassist. The bass lines and walks that he makes in this song not only intensifies the overall song, but also brings all the attention to him. This isn’t a bassist that’s just super technical and fast, this guy knows what the hell he’s doing and how the hell to do it RIGHT. After hearing what he did in that song, I stopped everything and started the album over, this time putting most of my focus on the bass. And this guy tears apart every song, showing everyone that he is a fucking amazing bassist and is currently right where he belongs, in Blood Red Throne.

As I’m writing this review, I’m just now realizing that, no matter how hard I try, I can’t find anything that I dislike (even just a little bit) about this album. What we have right here is death metal done right. Although 2013 is definitely not as good a year for metal as 2012 was, this year is releasing some very good music, Blood Red Throne’s self-titled album is one of many examples so far of amazing albums that have been released this year. This album is unique and pure at the same time. It fits the exact description of a good PURE death metal album, but it also has that unique twist of those groovy and fucking catchy parts to make it memorable. My personal favorite off of this would be the first song, Soulseller for having everything that can be found on this album compressed into one single song. This album gets a much-deserved score of 19/20. 

Dark Tranquillity - Construct

Dark Tranquillity is a band that many consider to be one of the best and clearest representatives of the melodic death genre. When giving examples of some of the purest and biggest melodic death bands out there, Dark Tranquillity is almost always mentioned, along with Amon Amarth, Arch Enemy, Hypocrisy, Insomnium, At the Gates, Scar Symmetry, etc. Like most of the really big melodic death bands out there, Dark Tranquillity resides in the beautiful country of Sweden. Hell, the only band that I listed above that isn’t Swedish is Insomnium (they’re from Finland). Anyways, Sweden is the home country of Dark Tranquillity. I was introduced to these guys at a live performance. The funny thing was that I was at that show for the two opening bands, Mutiny Within and Threat Signal, and the local band, Blood and Thunder. Having never heard Dark Tranquillity before, I was absolutely hooked on them after hearing their set. Of course, this was after the release of the album that they were touring for, We are the Void. So this is the first piece of new material since that show, and I’ll tell you this, you have no need to worry about it not living up to expectations.

These guys were on a fairly consistent path with their sound. The past four albums that they’ve released have all sounded pretty much the same; which is kind of ironic because those are my favorite albums by them (and, of course, The Gallery). In We are the Void, their sound was just starting to enter the beginning stages of growing old, so it was the appropriate thing to do to change things up a bit this time around. But what the hell did they do to change things up? Well, don’t expect any changes as drastic as the ones In Flames made, but there are some new elements that are very noticeable that are introduced in this album. In Flames really pushed the walls of melodic death metal. Regardless of your opinion on their newer sound, it’s undeniable that In Flames pushed themselves completely. Dark Tranquillity haven’t pushed themselves nearly as much as In Flames, but there are other reviewers out there that are saying that Dark Tranquillity are on part three of their musical journey.

From their formation in the early 1990s up until the release of The Mind’s I, this is what we call “classic” Dark Tranquillity (in this case, I’ll call it part one). Then, starting with the release of Projector in 1999, the band started playing an entirely different style of melodic death; one that really took a lot of listeners by surprise. But, unlike other bands, Dark Tranquillity’s change in sound never really caused much of an uproar of negative feedback. Now, well over a decade later, the Swedish masters have introduced to us the beginning of part three of their musical journey. Just like Projector, Construct is a style of melodic death that we haven’t heard from these guys before. Even when the single off the album was released and that was all we had, it was obvious that Construct was something fresh and new. But what about construct IS new?

Well, Dark Tranquillity’s sound is more melodic than ever before. Yes, Damage Done and Fiction were pretty melodic albums, but Construct takes this term to a whole new level. There’s much less of the really thrashy drumming that appears in literally every other Dark Tranquillity record prior to this one. The drumming overall has taken on a different path, which is probably due to the drummer getting bored of playing the same patterns for the past 20 or so years. Also, there is a lot, and I mean A LOT more contrast between the verses and the choruses in each song. It gets to the point where there are no distorted guitars at all in the verses and all hell breaks loose in the choruses (i.e. the first song on the album).

But the biggest change that Dark Tranquillity’s sound has gone through has nothing to do with individual specifics. The biggest change that has been made is the complete outlook on the genre itself. When you look at “part two” of their journey, they obviously had a much more straightforward outlook on melodic death. They went fast, with the grain, and added in some keyboards. And it was fucking great and almost everybody loved it. The sound that Construct delivers goes a bit under the surface structure of the genre and explores some of its more mystical and softer areas. This is pretty much the same thing that Swallow the Sun has done throughout their career, except they’re much softer and slower than Dark Tranquillity.

Overall, Construct is amazing and can easily be considered one of Dark Tranquillity’s best releases. For some reason, I’m having a hard time enjoying the ugly album artwork. But nonetheless, the music is what matters and it’s a beautiful piece of work that I would recommend to all fans of melodic death and metal in general. To be honest, this wouldn’t be a bad place to start if you’ve never heard Dark Tranquillity before. I would give Construct a score of 18/20. 

Upcoming Releases

I usually don't do many of these posts, but I realized just now how many albums I'm REALLY looking forward to this year. So here is a short-ish list of some upcoming album releases that I am extremely thrilled about.

Amon Amarth - Deceiver of the Gods (melodic death)
Watain - All that May Bleed (black metal)
Behemoth - The Satanist (black death)
Autopsy - The Headless Ritual (death metal)
August Burns Red - Rescue and Restore (metalcore)
Havok - Unnatural Selection (thrash metal)
Locrian - Return to Annihilation (drone)
Shaded Enmity - Forsaken and Forgotten (melodic death)
Sirenia - Perils of the Deep Blue (gothic metal)
Tarja - Victim of Ritual (symphonic metal)
Tarja - Colours in the Dark (symphonic metal)
ReVamp - Wild Card (symphonic metal)
blessthefall - Hollow Bodies (screamo)
Sick Puppies - Connect (hard rock)
Revocation - Revocation (thrash death)
DevilDriver - Winter Kills (thrash death)

Defeated Sanity - Passages into Deformity

Every album that Defeated Sanity puts out seems to be better than the one previous to it. I started listening to these guys when they only had two albums out. I got hooked onto the noisy brutality of their Psalms of the Moribund record. Then, without me knowing, they released a follow-up to that titled Chapters of Repugnance. So a year after it was released, I finally got my hands on it and instantly became addicted to the thick, meaty brutality that had grown in both maturity and technicality (I'll be discussing this later in the review). Now, after getting everyone's attention (including mine) with Chapters of Repugnance, Defeated Sanity are back with their most crushing album yet, Passages into Deformity.

Something that always bothered me about Defeated Sanity is the way the albums are mixed. In Psalms of the Moribund, everything sounded really muddy and almost overproduced. On top of that the vocals were almost completely drowned out to the point to where you really had to listen closely to hear them. Chapters of Repugnance solved that issue, but then again, it had its own problems as well. The drums on Chapters overpowered EVERYTHING to the point of being annoying. I think that Passages into Deformity is the first album that really fixed all the issues all the previous records had without creating any new ones. In other words, the sound of all the individual members, for the first time, sounds balanced.

Defeated Sanity really needs to NOT have a different vocalist on every album. When I learned that the guy from the brutal death masters Disgorge did the vocals on Chapters, I really hoped that he would be their longtime vocalist because, unlike some vocalists in the genre, he knows how to do inhaled growls and make it sound fucking good. Although the guy doing the vocals on this album sounds good and fits in with the rest of the band, it really is kind of a setback from the killer vocals that were delivered on Chapters of Repugnance.

Almost everywhere I see these guys on the internet, I see them being categorized as being a technical death band. Is there something I'm missing here? Because to me, Defeated Sanity doesn't sound all that technical. Unless now, any death metal band that has ANY amount of technicality is considered a technical death band (which kind of ruins the point of the genre). If that were true, that means Cannibal Corpse, Vader, Nile, Death, Suffocation, All Shall Perish, Morbid Angel, and so many other death metal, brutal death, and death grind bands would be considered technical death (ok well I guess I can understand Nile although I still just consider them to be a brutal death band). Since this confused the fucking hell out of me, I decided to go back and listen to Defeated Sanity's entire discography to find out why they're almost ALWAYS referred to as a technical death metal band.

As my initial reaction said, these guys aren't very technical at all. But, their sound does increase in complexity with each album. The bassist now has somewhat technical solos (most notably at the beginning of the second track, Naraka), which actually sound really cool. Besides that, and some of the lead guitar lines, these guys aren't any more technical than Cannibal Corpse. Something that Defeated Sanity DOES have, though, is an immense amount of purebred brutality. Their record label, Willowtip, claims this to be the most brutal album of 2013. As much as I disagree with that statement (new Guttural Secrete album, anyone?), I can't disagree with the fact that this record is brutal as fucking hell. The vocals, although not as high-pitched and guttural as the ones on Chapters, are much harsher and...well...more brutal than any of the other Defeated Sanity albums! The guitar distortion could use to have some more crunch, but it still sounds good.

Probably the best thing about Passages into Deformity is the maturity of the sound. Defeated Sanity, as a whole, have obviously matured a great deal since the release of Chapters of Repugnance. Everything from the song structure to the overall organization of the sound is stronger, more thought-out, and more confident than ever before; making Passages of Deformity a much easier album to digest and understand. And on top of all that, this album has the best cover artwork of any other past release by this band. I would strongly recommend this to all fans of brutality and death metal alike. Passages into Deformity gets my score of 16/20.

Upcoming Reviews

I'm back!!! Here is a list of bands that are mainly ones that I've been wanting to review for about two months or so with a few new ones:

Svart Crown (black death)
Dark Tranquillity (melodic death)
Blood Red Throne (death metal)
Arsis (technical death)
Pyrithion (death metal)
Tremor (grindcore)
Thousand Foot Krutch (hard rock/nu metal)
Unbirth (brutal death)
Anti-Flag (punk)
Thy Art is Murder (deathcore)
Vreid (black metal)
Syrebris (technical death)
Delusions of Grandeur (deathcore)
Defeated Sanity (brutal death)
Strychnia (thrash death)
Portal (progressive death)
Red Seas Fire (progressive metal)
Napalm Death (grindcore)

Where am I?

Where have I been for the past month?? I have been getting all of my school shit done so that I can graduate high school next week on June 7th!! Rest assured, I have still been very active on listening to music, jamming new shit by Ghost, Suffocation, The Dillinger Escape Plan, Napalm Death, Queens of the Stone Age, Dark Tranquillity, Boris, and many others. I've been to a ton of shows lately including Boris (the Japanese drone/progressive rock trio with the chick guitarist), The Decibel Magazine Tour which is probably the most brutal and insane tour of 2013 (sorry Summer Slaughter, you failed on the brutality factor this time) with Cannibal Corpse, Napalm Death, Immolation, and Cretin...Kvelertak with Cancer Bats, Black Tusk, and Crop, and maybe one or two other shows. This summer, I have already got my tickets for The Summer Slaughter Tour and, yes, Black Sabbath!

Once graduation is over and I've found a job, I will be reviewing like mad. Yes, some of the "new" albums I will be reviewing will not be as new as they were before (duh), so you can just suck it if that bothers you. Other than that, I'm excited to be getting back into writing and will be posting a review of my favorite search engine which has majorly revamped their site and given it a complete makeover. In other words, it's a lot better and I will be discussing that and providing super-awesome screenshots.

Hatchet - Dawn of the End

It’s not too often where you get introduced to a band during a live show that’s THIS good. When I saw Soilwork just last month with Jeff Loomis, Blackguard, and Bonded by Blood, there was one opening act that I had never heard of before that took me by surprise; a band by the name of Hatchet. Their musical style was obvious the instant the band walked on the stage. All of the members being skinny, having long hair, one with a Kreator shirt, one with a Megadeth shirt, one with an Edguy shirt, and their drummer simply wearing a black shirt with the sleeves torn off. Yes people, it appears that we have a thrash metal group on our hands. While they were tuning up and doing soundcheck, I went up to one of the biggest thrash metal fans of the greater Seattle area. He knows more about thrash (both old and new) than anyone I’ve ever met, and whenever theres a show with even ONE thrash metal band, there’s a 97% chance he will be there. So basically Hatchet is more or less your typical California thrash metal band. They’ve put out two albums (so they’re not too new), and they apparently have a hell of a bassist.

And to be honest, that almost sums up Hatchet. But remember, playing a genre in its pure and generic form isn’t always bad. In fact, thrash metal seems to be one of the genres with the largest number of generic bands that are still really fucking good! Even if a band is generic, they still have to have SOME unique qualities to set them apart from other bands. Hatchet’s most unique quality is the vocal style. The vocals seem to have two sides, the first side being a mid-ranged “yell” that isn’t completely belted out like Slayer or something like that. The other side is that the highs aren’t clean yells, they’re basically just really nasty screams, being very similar to the Exodus vocalist Rob Dukes. Except the difference between this guy and Rob is that Rob’s screams sound much more developed and mature. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing because Hatchet has only been around for about seven years, so obviously, the vocals are going to be a bit underdeveloped. Other than that, the vocals really add a unique twist to their sound, especially during their live performances.

Their song intros are really cool. On more than half of the tracks off the album, instead of going Slayer-style and just jumping right into the speed and brutality, Hatchet starts off with a slow, and often times melodic intro before going into the traditional thrash metal intro with one guitar playing and the rest of the band playing short blasts before everything goes in at full speed. The third track off the album is what exposes how amazing their bassist is. Behind the intro to Screams of the Night, you can hear the bassist playing one of the single best bass lines in thrash metal.

This is an issue that I have with thrash metal. Although I know that complex bass lines aren’t typically part of the thrash metal blueprint, when they ARE there, it makes the interest-factor skyrocket, especially when the bass riffs are creative and sound good. The bassist for Hatchet is almost always playing something different for the duration of the album, which is part of what made me fall for this album. It’s fucking fantastic! Everything that he plays not only fits the music, it also creates the right amount of contrast in all the right moments. The guitarists don’t really do anything that interesting, but when one of them breaks out into a solo, holy shit does the energy explode. Solos can always be good, but there’s just something about some guitar solos out there that causes all hell to break loose (huge circle pit anyone?).

The drummer is PERFECT for the style of music, but I’m not sure about him being over-the-top good. That’s another thing that I have trouble with in thrash metal, there aren’t enough drummers that are over-the-top great. But then again, it’s the generic and basic thrash drummers that make those fantastic drummers look even better. But overall, this is one of the best thrash metal albums that ISN’T by a legendary band that I’ve heard since 2009 when Havok released their debut, Burn. The quality is great, the band is extremely tight, the bassist is amazing, the guitar solos are exhilarating, and the vocals are unique. This is an album that I would recommend to any and all thrash metal fans. Dawn of the End gets a score of 17/20.

Jeff Hanneman RIP

Dead at age 49, one of the greatest guitar players of all-time. I don't even know how to react to this shit. Damn.....half of the online metal webzines have had their servers overloaded by all the traffic. One of the only ones left seems to be the one I write for, www.louderthanhell.net but I might be speaking too soon.