Inner Terror - Behold The Inner Terror
Inner Terror are a band from Ohio in the U.S. that recently came to light in 2009, and a year later, released their debut on their own. The group performs a mix of thrash and power metal through what seems to be a concept album, but the songs may not always fit together. However, the music is good, bringing no shame to either genre. There's a lot of thrash groove mixed with harsh, barking vocals along the lines of bands such as Slayer, and then lots of times the vocals are cleaner and the guitars have more melody than just sharp, cutting edge notes that sounds more like Iced Earth. Not a bad mix at all.
The album opens with a short instrumental that sounds a bit loopy with both guitars playing off each other before launching into the next track, which opens with some slowly picked notes along with the semi-snarled vocals. Eventually the music goes more into a chugging formation with the drums thumping along in the background while the guitars try to keep the same three riffs through the song. It's not that impressive, but the band performs better along the way. "Unresting Place" offers a more 'storytelling' aspect as the vocals bark out the lyrics while the music tries to cut back a little so it sounds more than a rant than a song; it's different but sounds interesting in the way that it is done. The music is still pretty thrash inspired at this point.
The turning point comes in during the next two tracks when the vocals opt more for singing and the guitars change from their chugging, catchy format to a more melodic, lengthy chord progression, mixed with a few shorter groove inspired ones, to create a great mix of thrash and power metal. "Self Human Genocide" is a great example of this. While most of the other tracks are strictly melodic thrash, there's some more exciting ones than others. Tracks like "Battleground" employ samples of bells amongst the music to keep things entertaining while "Harder They Fall" offers some wild falsetto vocals before an equally wild solo, making it the most unique track on the album for the sheer complexity of the music (at least compared to most of the others). For a debut album, Behold The Inner Terror is a pretty good album, suitable for any thrash or power metal fan. While most of the music on here is thrash inspired, it's certainly more melodic and doesn't fall on trying to play the same five riffs over and over with a few breaks from solos.
The album opens with a short instrumental that sounds a bit loopy with both guitars playing off each other before launching into the next track, which opens with some slowly picked notes along with the semi-snarled vocals. Eventually the music goes more into a chugging formation with the drums thumping along in the background while the guitars try to keep the same three riffs through the song. It's not that impressive, but the band performs better along the way. "Unresting Place" offers a more 'storytelling' aspect as the vocals bark out the lyrics while the music tries to cut back a little so it sounds more than a rant than a song; it's different but sounds interesting in the way that it is done. The music is still pretty thrash inspired at this point.
The turning point comes in during the next two tracks when the vocals opt more for singing and the guitars change from their chugging, catchy format to a more melodic, lengthy chord progression, mixed with a few shorter groove inspired ones, to create a great mix of thrash and power metal. "Self Human Genocide" is a great example of this. While most of the other tracks are strictly melodic thrash, there's some more exciting ones than others. Tracks like "Battleground" employ samples of bells amongst the music to keep things entertaining while "Harder They Fall" offers some wild falsetto vocals before an equally wild solo, making it the most unique track on the album for the sheer complexity of the music (at least compared to most of the others). For a debut album, Behold The Inner Terror is a pretty good album, suitable for any thrash or power metal fan. While most of the music on here is thrash inspired, it's certainly more melodic and doesn't fall on trying to play the same five riffs over and over with a few breaks from solos.