01. Spawn from Lies
02. Sadist International
03. Plausible Deniability
04. Destructive Attitude
05. The Falacy you Call Faith
06. Pearls Before Swine
07. Contaminated Blood
08. Attention-Terrorist
09. Unique Legacy
10. Greed, Tyranny & Sodomy
Comment:
The comeback 3rd album of these dutch veteran Thrashers with a stunning production and a bunch of great songs filled with killer riffs, intense and relentless compositions with an awesome compositive sense. Lovers of SLAYER, early PESTILENCE, REVENANT... beware!!
After an 8 year break since their 2003 full length album, Crustacean comes crashing back with their brand new album, Greed, Tyranny & Sodomy. Being a sucker for nice album artworks, seeing the one on this album certainly put me off a little bit, with the seemingly amateurish artwork. However, once that has been overcome, what is contained in the album will definitely surprise listeners.
Right from the beginning, the heavy thrash metal influences in Crustacean's brand of music are obvious. The spoken introduction sets the mood for the album, before breaking into their frantic style of death/thrash metal. With frantic and chaotic riffs that instantly brings to mind and easily rival thrash metal legends such as Slayer, the band are ready to destroy anyone in their path. Add in the vocals of vocalist/bassist Tom, spitting the lyrics with hate into the microphone, like a cross between teutonic thrash metal legends Kreator's Mille Petrozza and Slayer's Tom Araya, and you get the perfect blend of death/thrash the way it should be done - fast, aggressive, hateful yet fun enough to start a mini moshpit right in front of your speakers. The moments where Tom chooses to use spoken-styled vocals also show the punk influences that have been incorporated into the music as well, making this a fitting record to attract fans of different styles of music. The style that Tom has chosen also makes chanting/shouting along to the songs easy as well, along with the simple (though slightly cliche) lyrics on songs like The Fallacy You Call Faith.
The songwriting department also does not let up, with songs like Spawn from Lies having slow parts that seem to pay homage to songs from Slayer's Reign in Blood era. These slow parts are fittingly made use of by the band to build up the climax and tension in the music, such as the slow lead section on Sadist International, causing much unease in the listener awaiting for the next wave of aural assault. Guitar solo duties are shared between axe-wielding duo Michel and JBR, often duelling and challenging each other to see who is able to come up with the most chaotic, face-ripping solo. The two distinctive styles of guitar playing of Michel and JBR makes for an interesting listen, on songs such as Plausible Deniability. The chaotic style also does not mean that they have no sense of melody, as evident on songs like closing track Greed, Tyranny & Sodomy.
The d-beat styled drumming that Joris has littered throughout the album further brings to mind crossover/thrash bands, enforcing the thrashy sound in the music. The energy in the music provided by Joris also cannot be denied, as can be heard on songs like The Fallacy You Call Faith, where he provides the quick footwork in contrast to the slow pace of the rest of the instruments in good effect. The band has also arranged the songs in such a way that they flow seamlessly, making Greed, Tyranny & Sodomy a good listen from start to end. Closing and title track Greed, Tyranny & Sodomy begins with a melodic, ballad-ish lead guitar line, almost tricking the listener into thinking that the label might have pressed the wrong track onto the album, yet any such misunderstandings are cleared as the band once again goes into their hyperactive mode from the 1 minute mark onwards.
One thing that slightly marred the experience though: while the music on the album is overall enjoyable, the lyrical department gets slightly weak at times. While as already mentioned above, easy lyrics make for easy sing/shoutalong, but on songs like Attention Terrorist, it gets cheesy ("Everything revolves around me!") and sounds slightly awkward being shouted out. However, such awkward moments are few and thus should not be a big factor considering the quality music.
The band, despite not having any releases at all between the previous album and this, has managed to display that they still have the ability to do what they do best. If you like metal fast and aggressive, Greed, Tyranny & Sodomy is certainly an album not to be missed.
Crustacean is a band from Tilburg, Holland that started out in 1989 and that recorded a few albums of which the last one ‘Insaniac’ dates from 2003. Members of the band have been active in acts like Outburst and Acrostichon as well but the complete act is also known as the Slayer Coverband. They try to win some souls over with their own act through the new album ‘Greed, Tyranny & Sodomy’. You can’t deny there’s a lot of old Slayer in Crustacean’s aggressive thrash. Singer Tom Paulusse reminds a lot of Tom Araya although he sings a bit higher. If you dig old school thrash in the vein of acts like Slayer, Whiplash or Deadhead you should check this album.
Dutch band CRUSTACEAN have been forging metal since 1989, two albums, some line-up changes, they’re here to thrash out ‘Greed, Tyranny & Sodomy’. Though marked as Death Metal band as well as Thrash metal one, they’ve shed off the Death metal for this album that is parted from its predecessors by eight years.
The sound of this album is a marriage of SLAYER, with its approach to music, to RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE, regarding the vocal delivery of socio-political commentary lyrics. Their vocalist Tom Paulusse is just fiercer and more straightforward than Tom Araya, more in a fashion of Zack de la Rocha in majority of the songs, in others it’s on a fence between these two examples of approaches. Of course having played in SLAYER cover band as well, the Thrash titans are more prominent or noticeable. Which of course makes it not an album to be exhorted as an original one, but it’s more than enjoyable nevertheless if you want to let off steam with some fierce head banging and listen to a catalyst for your accumulated rage and anger.
The chugging is mostly unrelenting and takes you right through like on a ride, the thrash formula followed faithfully except through some breaks of different metal streaks here and there, as for example in ‘The Fallacy You Call Faith’ and the last ‘Greed, Tyranny & Sodomy’ where some melodic marks are made before the song fully kicks in and out. A good, well composed and executed album though nothing to get super excited about, they need to kill some influences first and come out of the hard shell as themselves if they want to strive for more in terms of achievement for their own name. However, they seem to enjoy what they’re doing tremendously and the verve of their enthusiasm sweeps you along and lets you enjoy it, regardless of its “spawn of/spin of” feeling.
'Greed, Tyranny, & Sodomy' is Crustacean's first album in eight years. Lately it seems they've leaned more towards the thrash side of music rather than their usual death-thrash they've performed in the past, but one can still hear traces of death metal in the guitar structure on tracks like "Spawn From Lies." However, mostly fans will be entertained by the old school thrash style of bands like Artillery, Accept, and even Slayer with catchy, fast hitting riffs and pummeling drums on tracks such as "Sadist Internation" and "Destructive Attitude." The vocals are very well produced in the usual spitfire verbal assault as they bellow along the music; no rough snarls or screams here. Just straightforward clean barking that sounds like speed rap meets Tomy Arya of Slayer's earlier vocal work.
Some tracks a bit slower than others, going more for the foreboding, luring introduction rather than just jumping right to the point of purely aggressive music. "Contaminated Blood" is one of those tracks that starts off nice and easy and then develops into a thick, chugging format that is very repetitive, but also extremely anthem-like and will probably become a listener favorite only after the first try. Other tracks like "The Fallacy You Call Faith" sound completely experimental as it REALLLY slows down for just long, winded chords and almost a doom metal formula. Even with the other guitars in the background plugging away at a medium speed, listener attention is mostly focused on the lengtheir chords which tend to stick in the mind for a while. Once they disappear, the thrash atmosphere returns, but even then it just feels a lot slower than usual and more accessible and rock oriented rather than gritty and underground. But, then again, Crustacean's new album is far from gritty as it is one of the better well produced thrash albums up the year.
For such a long wait, fans should be pretty satisfied with how well Crustacean approached 'Greed, Tyranny...' It still brings that attitude of old school thrash but with a clean sound so listeners can actually enjoy what's going on rather than be befuddled by a wall of sound and distortion. While some may argue the music has slowed down quite a bit since its earlier days and traded ferocity for a more accessible touch; 'Greed...' is much more digestible than the work on 'Burdens Of Our Suffering.' Take it or leave it, this one pretty much rocks the thrash genre.
Ocho años hemos tenido que esperar para que los holandeses CRUSTACEAN editaran su tercer disco. Su anterior álbum, “Insaniac” (2003) tuvo cierta repercusión en el underground (perdón, en el subterráneo…) internacional, sobre todo gracias a la distribución en su día de su sello actual, Xtreem Music, de Dave Rotten y cía. Los de Tilburg se formaron en 1994, y cuentan en sus filas con el ex-batería de ABHORRENCE Joris Camps y con los guitarristas JBR y Michel Meeuwissen (este último también formó parte de ACROSTICHON), ex-miembros de los míticos MASTER. Con energías renovadas, y sin los toques de Death Metal que tenían en el pasado, la banda ha editado un gran disco de puro Thrash Metal, con una producción muy superior a la de su anterior trabajo, y que nos ofrecen diez temas muy en la onda de SLAYER, quizás demasiado. Quiero decir con esto que aun siendo un estupendo disco, es posible que se hayan dejado llevar mucho por la influencia de los estadounidenses.
Además, en este nuevo álbum, CRUSTACEAN se alejan de cualquier sonido puramente europeo, ya que suenan en muchas ocasiones como un antiguo grupo de la Bay Area pero con sonido actual y limpio. Solos muy Hanneman / King y letras político-sociales que tanto usan muchos grupos de Thrash. Es complicado destacar alguna canción, ya que es un disco muy regular, sin apenas altibajos ni excesivas florituras, aunque sí resaltaría el tema que da título al disco y “Sadist international”, donde dejan escapar un riff muy DESTRUCTION, en una de las pocas influencias de metal europeo que se distinguen en este “Greed, tyranny & sodomy”. Está claro que a cualquiera que disfrute del Thrash estadounidense es imposible que no lo haga con este álbum; eso sí, sabiendo que hay capacidad musical, animaría al grupo a buscar un estilo más personal, ya que con un toque original, en lugar de puro entretenimiento thrasher estaríamos hablando de otra cosa mucho más potente. Aún así, y como digo, buen disco para mover la cabeza y para quien quiera escuchar Thrash ochentero “American way” pero adaptado a nuestros días.
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