Here we have a freshly hatched group from Finland with a bit of an apparent chicken fetish! Not sure exactly what that is about but on the strength of the four tracks on offer here they deserve a bit of egging on. Turning up on a CD with really good production theirs is a punchy, scrambled mix of groove, thrash and death metal which is pretty much guaranteed to get heads and feet a tapping.
With a running time of just 13-minutes there is an immediacy about the material here and the players sound hungry no doubt having been cooped up for so long as they formed in the height of the pandemic. ‘Dethroned’ rattles in with some classic sounding thrash laden melodicism and then we get a two pronged vocal attack with low growls and higher etched snarls giving the delivery the best of both worlds and giving things a bit of a grindcore style. It’s a shame reading behind the lines that Olli Laaka was who provides them is just a session vocalist as he does a brilliant job. Unfortunately for whatever reason he is not going to be continuing with the band who are looking for a permanent vocalist as they write new material and prepare to play some future shows. Bouncy and pummelling with plenty of juddering grooves ‘Trips’ has some good meaty drumming and fast fluid guitar runs. It gets the blood suitably pumping and has a pit full of heaviness about it as it thumps and chugs away.
‘The Man In Red’ solidifies some Slayer-etched riffing which I had acknowledged earlier and those higher yapping vocals really go for the throat and tear away savagely at it as the roars and bellows growl away in elongated style below. There’s even some backing vocals and this short sharp number has plenty going on in it. It’s probably ‘Zombie Syndicate’ that impresses the most with a melody that has everything from Arch Enemy to Prong going on in it. With a mellow mid-section offering a slight respite it moves into a final gallop and leaves you wishing there were a few more songs here. That said there’s plenty to build on here and patience will be necessary before the band get it together for the return of the chicken dead. I look forward to hearing more when they do.
(7/10 Pete Woods)
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