 
Spanish thrash metallers Angelus Apatrida left
a long lasting impression on me when I received
their debut full length studio album on Century
Media “Clockwork” back in 2010; I
found their broad range of influence combinations
encompassing that of power metal, heavy metal
and thrash metal to be a breath of fresh air in
the modern times with a huge ocean filled with
generic thrash bands emerging. With this new 2012
release on the horizon can these guys keep up
the quality of their material and pull out some
more of those distinctive tracks? Let’s
take a look.
Starting at the beginning with opening song “You
Are Next”, this picks off exactly where
past album “Clockwork” left off, except
this time the musical style feels much grittier
and more refined. When I reviewed “Clockwork”
I made reference to the diversity between the
tracks and stated that it appeared to be the band
experimenting with the parameters of their sound,
I think they left that in the past however as
what I’m hearing from this release is a
certain similarity between each of the tracks;
not to the extent where it makes them all sound
the same but subtly links them all together, indicating
they’ve decided where they want to go as
a band. It’s heavier on the thrash side
of things and still as high octane fast paced
as ever.
It’s songs like “Blood on the Snow”
that really capture my attention; they’ve
still got that raw power of the heavy thrash but
also preserve the melodic presence found in heavy
metal during the choruses, really the best of
both worlds. Apart from that songs like “It’s
Rising!”, “Violent Dawn” and
closing track “Reborn” that really
mesmerise me, especially “Reborn”
as its 7 minutes long and has a lot of thick breakdowns
and generally chunky guitar work in it. A thrash
release full of technical writing with elements
that can hold their own whether they’re
out on tour with the heavy thrash acts, the old
school veterans, the heavy metal clan or the likes
of and modern day acts as their music is both
modern and classic, whether you like thrash metal
or not I still recommend anyone to check this
album out as it’s been hard for me to describe
it’s style to the full extent.
4/5
Review by James Webb
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