From Long Island, New York, To The Pain are a five piece thrash outfit with a love for all things old school thrash. With heads, minds and sound all firmly rooted in the late 80’s, the ‘golden era’ of thrash metal, To The Pain look set to unleash their second album on us all titled “Seven”. With comparisons drawn to Testament, Iron Maiden and Racer X in the presser, let’s see if its lucky number seven for these guys.
Opening up with the sample heavy “March For Mankind” which is littered with battle sound effects and dramatic marching drums and guitar harmony lines, the short intro track explodes to life with a huge vocal shout as “Heaven’s Charge”, the first real track of the album begins. Full of thunder with a powerful chugging thrash rhythm and pounding drums and bass, the vocals are flair filled and dramatic, a real throw back to the classic 80’s approach. With tremendous lead-work, a big catchy chorus and some gang vocal use, this NY five piece sounds rather like England’s own Hospital Of Death, another band who clearly follow the code of 80’s and early 90’s thrash.
Title Track “Seven” keeps the powerful sounding intro and packs a punch with its beefy sounding riffs which have that great headbanging groove in the verses whilst in the choruses, the riff pattern changes a little and the vocals really come to life. Short and full of attitude, this track follows on nicely from the opening double. “KIllzone” has some of the best rhythm work on the album with some thunderous and booming bass and drum work. Add to this the chugging guitars and it all builds up rather well for the simple, riff and groove heavy majority of the song. With its dark lyrical theme delivered with a sneer, its definitely one of the more serious thrash songs of the year.
“It’s My Turn To Die” keeps up the tremendous thrash groove feel with even more exemplary rhythm work and in the chorus, it actually slows a little and the sneered vocals from the verse go to a style which is more sang. The highpoint of this track though is the mid-section into the solo. The lead builds up slowly to begin with before it gradually picks up the pace and complexity, flowing fluidly into a full on shredfest before the final chorus comes back in and another wild shred solo caps it all. “Cry Out For Justice” is pretty much like the rest of the album. A healthy mixture of heavy guitars, pounding rhythm work, full on thrash groove and strong vocal work. With the chorus being slower than the faster paced intro and verses, it gives it a lot more punch when it comes in with the chugging feel and massive sounding vocals.
Wrapping the album up is “Don’t Eat The Eyes” which opens up with a thrashier variant of an Iron Maiden styled harmony line. This descending line transitions into a low chunky groove with some scathing vocal delivery which gets more dramatic as the track progresses. Chorus wise, it’s got a decent feel to it with some good harmony lines and as the track progresses, the gallop feel becomes more prominent but on the whole, as a closing track, it lacks the spark the rest of the tracks on this release had and kind of has what was a great sounding record fizzle out rather tamely.
Overall, “Seven” is a great slice of classic thrash with melodic elements of the NWOBHM style incorporated into it. Great riffing, great vocals and fantastic rhythm work lay the foundation for a winning formula and with the big catchy choruses and headbanging pulse, To The Pain certainly know how to bring it. Well worth a listen
(7.5/10 Fraggle)
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