01. Intro
02. Chaos Anatomy
03. Thrash and Kill
04. Moshpirit
05. Thrashing your Brain
06. New Born War
07. Better you Run
08. Psycho-Crime
09. I Hate you
10. Never Surrender
11. Few Seconds of Madness
Spain’s Aggression unleash their second album ‘Viocracy’, my immediate impression are that of a band delivering technical thrash, a little progressive, a little more out of the box, they gain plus points because they are not jumping on the bandwagon of every thrash-styled band that comes out of late. Vocally, I am reminded of the melodic, almost singing style of Death Angel’s Mark Osegueda and Heathen’s David White’s higher register but musically, it’s anything in between Coroner and perhaps some bands like Watchtower. That said, they are not copycats, Aggression are entertaining and influences stretch as far as a cover of Rush’s instrumental piece ‘YYZ’.
If you want entertainment, this album is more the musically minded amongst you, there are little moments to mosh and headbang, these are disrupted by often disjointed time changes, a trait of technical thrash metal as it’s called. With that in mind, I am surprised that the album still manages to flow well, a mark of good arrangements, but some of you will get frustrated by it I am sure. To ease some of these tendencies, check out ‘Human Nature’, this is much more down to earth and develops more of a groove to it, something to sink your teeth into I guess, musically it is still challenging (by that I mean technicality levels are high), the overall feel is more in tune with most ragers in the pit, some of the riffing reminds me of some Megadeth, the acoustic start to the track also builds momentum up rather nicely. In summary, this is US style thrash with added levels of musicianship notable of the European bands of the late 1980’s. Quite a cool mix in all honesty. Further tracks that tickle your fancy include ‘Chemical Slavery’, almost a John Connelly vocal here, over the top riffing and time signature changes with occasional groove.
Aggression make thrash interesting, I would award another half point if I was able too, but on the whole this is a cool release, more for a musically minded person than the average raging thrash-a-holic, but, arrangements are entertaining, interesting and no one can deny their musical ability, but perhaps some restraint in the song structures would benefit the band but I take my hat off to them for being different and musically overflowing with ideas and talent.
While many people predicted that the new wave of thrash wouldn’t last that long, it is still going strong and plenty of new bands are joining the scene every month. One of the relatively newer ones to come across my desk is Aggression, a thrash band from Spain that formed in 2005 and signed a deal with Xtreem Music last year. On their debut album MoshPirit the band plays your standard fast paced/mid-tempo thrash that is very riff oriented but unlike many of their peers they actually do it well enough to make an impression on listeners.
They may be from Spain, but Aggression seems to have taken more influence from American thrash bands than European ones. Many of the tracks on MoshPirit have a Bay Area sound as the riffs have that same tone and style to them. However, despite the fact that Aggression has a bit of a retro feel to their material this doesn’t mean that they are simply ripping off those that came before them. The instrumentalists do have quite a bit of technical ability and have written some cool riffs that have just the right balance of heaviness and melody. Things do get a little less interesting when the band transitions into slower moments though, as the instrumentals aren’t able to maintain the same intensity and variety when this happens. This is definitely something that should be addressed in the future, but it doesn’t hold the album back all that much.
Singer Pol Luengo may be a little too close to the thrash stereotypes for some people, but his vocals do fit the instrumentals well and do add an extra layer of energy to the band’s music. Luengo is sure to remind listeners of several of the prominent Bay Area thrash vocalists, but it’s hard to pinpoint one that he sounds exactly like as his voice is more of a mixture of several singers than one in particular. But what does bother me is the lyrical content and song titles, which seem to cling to the tried and true themes that the genre has discussed for years now. I would like to see the group come up with some ideas that don’t seem so generic as this could help them become more distinguishable in the years to come.
MoshPirit may not be the best thrash album to come out in the past year or two, but it is one of the better efforts to come out from a new thrash band. The riffs are impressive and the group has been able to live up to many of their inspirations, but doesn’t quite stand out just yet. However, they’re at a much higher level than other newcomers to the genre and have the potential to become one of the noteworthy acts if they continue to fine tune their material in the future.
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