The debut offering from the Swiss quartet out of Sursee is an impressive death/thrash album with plenty of groove and tempo changes to keep things dynamic and interesting.
A nice solid groove opens “Captured” which steadily progresses over Benjamin Kottmann’s drums, while his vocals have a nice rasp which remind me of Gorefest and work well over both the slow steady chug of the guitars and during their more frantic pace during the drum blasting.
Markus Hospenthal and Dominik Meier’s guitars play contrasting riffs on “No Tomorrow” which has a mid-pace that allows their heaviness to punch through.
A quickly played bass intro by Michael Schuler gets swallowed up by the guitars on “That’s Me” but when everything slows down, the leads come in with a melancholy prettiness that belies the aggression that’s about to come for the remainder of the song.
Remaining slow and steady but without being afraid to increase the intensity when required, “Enslavement” bounces between the two, giving the vocals added depth by their varied pace too.
“Pure Exploitation” has Beni playing some tight triplets on the kick pedals while intricate drum fills are used during the more subdued phases of the song.
The ever increasing pace on “The New Belief” as the song progresses make the drop to almost nothing for the bridge even starker, but the outro lead is well worth listening to.
“Social Parasite” exemplifies their preference for heaviness over speed, as even it breaks down into a rather groove orientated rhythm during the lead break.
Possibly the sustained fastest track is “Down” with its steady kick drum pounding your ear drums, Beni’s rasping vocals scraping your brain and the lead scouring your eyelids all for good measure.
The slow bridge on “Solve The Pain” has guitar rhythm being played clean giving it a completely different feel to the distorted version, then when the bass break kicks in and everything else follows suit, you just hold on for the remainder of the ride as you can sense there’s no getting off anymore.
If this was a pop song, “Scream For Me” would have a completely different meaning and here the sadistic undertone is far more suited the music we listen to and aptly so.
With pretty much everyone’s contempt for them these days, “The Leaders” get a bit of a bashing here too, and rightly so.
A pleasantly picked guitar intro morphs into a heavier strumming, while the steady drums eventually boil over into a thrash attack that is “Breaking Strength Of Mind”. A good strong ending to an album of this quality.
(8/10 – Marco Gaminara)
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