Flash Of Aggression - Seed Of Hate
This is relatively new thrash from Russia with quite harsh vocals reminiscent of some black and melodic death metal which inevitably adds more power to the mix, you could say that female vocalist Polina Berezko (also of Grace Disgraced) sounds a lot like Arch Enemy’s Angela Gossow. A video exists for the track ‘Paper God’ which has heavy thrash in it, but I also find some of the riffs leading into a hybrid mash up with a melodic death style, more so with the guitar tone and delivery rather than the actual arrangement. The release is hard hitting, a modern heavy version of thrash, something the purists may wrongly label as merely metalcore which it is not. ‘The Kingdom of Salvation’ is another track that follows their tried and tested formula for aggression and tight rhythm, the intro is quite spectacular and rather melo-death Sweden style prior to the main body of the track kicking in. As it progresses the bouncy choppy guitar parts use those melodic tones to great effect, however, with such a harsh vocal it does necessarily lead itself to the genre they are allegedly pigeon holed into, it has too much bite for that, but in a good way. One thing about this release that’s really nice and expected I have to say is the strong sonic production, all the levels are boosted and this does make it an easier album to listen too without any volume knob changes during the process.
‘Cancer on the Face of Our Planet’ is much more grass roots and by the time I have got to this point in the album I am getting a lot of the same vibes between tracks. In some cases the vocal style is a little too harsh for the music, but Flash of Aggression do tame their enthusiasm and bring it back under control every once in a while. All in all, this is a comfortable listen but it lacks a little spark to make this really different to other thrash/death releases out there, but to be fair, Flash of Aggression are marketing themselves very well and have a strong promo video catalogue and photoshoot portfolio and on the surface they represent themselves very professionally.
Jan 23, 2014
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