I usually don’t read the promo information sent by PR companies or bands in order to avoid tarnishing my own opinion before listening to releases but a quick read of the rather large typeface sheet included with this promo has my eyes on ‘hard assed riffs and leads’, ‘thundering bass’, and ‘merciless pounding drum’ (yes singular). I had mistakenly broken my own rules thinking that this indeed was going to be all those adjectives but was hit full face with a damp squib modern take on thrash metal that uses melodic leads and riffs with a hefty rhythm section. Opening tune “The Final Battle” has a harmonising riff style similar to the now defunct Anterior and mixed with a combination of growls and snarl vocals which are fine, but the clean vocals made me cringe, being weak and toneless unfortunately.
Into “There’s Nothing” on this EP and the reliance of the sporadic double kick for injected heaviness is all too evident and despite the guitar playing being competent it is in no where mesmerising and again the clean vocals are plain bloody awful, a fact that continues on the title track as by now I was wanting this EP to end even if it’s only 20 minutes in duration. There is the odd moment of sparkle on the release but the overbearing burden of flaws make them pale to insignificance. The ballad like attempt on the title track with horrific clean vocals is Metallica like but made me wince inwardly, I almost felt embarrassed just listening to this even on my own, hoping my neighbours couldn’t hear it, thinking what the fuck is that nutter listening to next door.
As you’ve probably guessed I despised this release and though tempting as it may be to give this a paltry two points I will be rational enough to state that musically the band can play but outside of their own locality where they might be seen as very good, internationally Implosion Circle are distinctly average and are likely to implode if improvements are not made extremely quickly.
(4/10 Martin Harris)
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