Over the years of writing here I have noticed that I seem to be drawn towards many of the Spanish thrash and death metal acts who we have brought to our attention. A trend I have picked up on is that a lot of the thrash comes from the Catalan region which is known for doing things its own way and standing out. Exessus are the latest Catalan metal act to pass through and the four piece have been kicking about since 2012 and are now on their second release “Asynapse”. So let’s see if we have another gem from a region which has produced some notable acts or we have something which falls flat much like the fortunes of its flagship football club and political aspirations.
Starting things off, this album has a run time of 70minutes. This is rather long for an album which has a particularly strong leaning towards thrash metal and normally the longer run time thrash releases at least have a rather strong dynamic to their sound to keep the attention so it doesn’t feel like a monumental task to listen to it… That or they are a live album. In this case, Asynapse is neither live nor is it strong on the dynamic approach. There might be a variety of styles present, some tracks leaning more into the groove metal inspired by Pantera or the melodic metalcore leanings of mid-2000’s Trivium, but there is a big discord in the cohesion of the tracks round the mid-point of the album, most notably on ‘Voyager’, which kills the momentum generated and whilst it might show the extended range of the musicians ability to compose a variety of musical approaches, it just feels wrong situated in the main run of the release at such a crucial point in the albums run time. The switch from a reliable thrash-metalcore groove to an experimental bluesy ballad before running into a classical guitar inspired instrumental sucks a lot of life out of the flow and when the more metal approach returns on ‘Old Chains’, it doesn’t feel as strong as it did before.
Pacing, duration and track placement aside, ‘Asynapse’ has some solid moments but it doesn’t have many points which will really catch you and keep you invested. Opening track “Bloodshed” is a quick blast of groove heavy thrash with some melodic hooks and “Oblivion” which follows a similar approach, this time leaning more into the groove element, reminiscent of the lacklustre ‘Reinventing The Steel’ Pantera sound. “No King” is pretty much the same as the previous track and whilst solid in the rhythmic work and energetic current of the track, it just lacks that spark to really catch you.
Thankfully the average start seems to yield results in the unexpected form of “Paths” which shifts to a solid offering of melodic metal reminiscent of ‘Ascendancy’ era Trivium. Soaring guitar melodies which are loaded with hooks and catchy vocal lines in the chorus have that sing along feel. It’s fairly straight forward and it works well at catching your attention and getting you interested. “Strength” follows and it manages to mix the groove thrash with the catchy melodic metal to an extent and this is reflected in the lead guitar theatrics and the solid bass and drum work. “InnerParasite” and “Singular” builds on this, managing to improve on the approach made on the previous track. Both tracks have thundering rhythm sections which carries them and the shifts to huge melodic hook loaded choruses help out hugely. So far after an average start the album seems to build momentum.
Sadly the momentum is shattered with the previously mentioned ‘Voyager’, a poorly placed bluesy inspired metalcore ballad which drags on longer than it needs to and saps all momentum and enjoyment out of the album. The crisp playing and deep bass might be nice to listen to but overall, the track just kills off the whole flow of the release. Pointless filler track “Leaving” follows in the same vein of no momentum and wrong placement as it doesn’t even lead into the subsequent “Old Chains”. It is this point which forces the album into a nose dive which the band tries to recover from but ultimately fails too.
“Old Chains” is a groove heavy track with a monstrous sound and does recapture some of the lost momentum but this is followed by the 13 minute “Notes of the soul pt. 2”. This track is a chore to listen to casually so for someone needing to repeatedly listen to it in order to write about it… You get the idea. A mash of various approaches which feels disjointed at the best of times and lacks many motifs to allow familiarity and compositional solidity leads to what you could describe as someone hearing prog for the first time and going ‘I wanna try that’ and writing three different songs and putting them together as one, not caring for how they work together or if they work at all.
“Welcome To The Hole” again tries to recover some momentum but despite its solid rhythm section and thick wall of blistering thrash riffing it fails to capture the earlier form in the album. The false finish into a ‘bonus’ techno beat vibe is amusing but adds little of value to the album as you would expect it to wrap up there, but instead an extended version of “Paths” closes this copy of the release.
In all, “Asynapse” is a mess. It could have easily been 8 or 9 half decent tracks with some sense of cohesion but instead it is an exercise in persistence in terms of listening to it. Moments of inspiration do surface from time to time on this album but on the whole it is difficult to string them together enough to form something which is totally workable.
(5/10 Fraggle)
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