Engine of Pain is by far
the hardest and heaviest release from the Lion Music label ever, and
I can't say I feel they have struck gold with their first attempt.
Engine of Pain from the
Netherlands plays good ol' school thrash metal in the vein of genre
greats like Testament and Pantera nicely combined with newer stuff -
Swedish bands like In Flames (first and foremost) and other
Gothenburg bands come to mind. And musically this is absolutely one
the better new European thrash metal releases for some time!
The music is fast, it's hard and
heavy, there's some great groove parts and the guitar work is top
notch throughout the album, but two things are really setting this
album back! First there is the very thin and dull production, which
kills some of the fun! Secondly and in my opinion the biggest
setback is however the extremely monotone and awful vocal
"acrobatics" from Nick Hameury. His performance is my opinion just
horrid, sure they are aggressive, but no range or variation just
kills off the rest of the fun for me.
I feel a bit sad, because we are
clearly dealing with a very talented band that knows how to create
interesting thrash songs. But unless all of the pieces fit the
puzzle the puzzle isn't complete and I can't exactly say that they
fit here...
