Released By : Copro Records
Genre : Brutal Thrash Metal
Links : http://www.athwart.org/
Tracklist:
01. Intro
02. God Can’t See
03. Italian History X
04. This Is Not Progress
05. Strain At The Leash
06. By Blue Ontario’s Shore
07. Into The Barren desert
08. Contaminated Blood
09. Outskirts
10. The Front
11. Back To Sarajevo
Well this album was a nice little surprise I must say. Upon preparing to listen to it I noticed the Corpro Records tag on the back cover, a label that does give us some good stuff but most of it is plagued with overly strong Italian accents and bland musicianship. I also took note of the front cove which depicts among other things a dark, gloomy cathedral type door. Then inside the booklet I noticed a female band member. With all of these things in my mind I had automatically presumed that this would be some sort of bland female fronted gothic metal album but I couldn’t have been more wrong.
ATHWART is actually a kick-ass Italian thrash metal band with a female lead guitarist Giulia Coletti who would shame a lot of the boys in the industry with her technical chops and her penchant for awesome speedy solos. Also versatile vocalist Michele Guerra ( a guy) who throws his voice between SLAYER style brutal thrash vocals to death metal like growls and the occasional black metal inspired wail that can peel the skin right of the back of your neck. Maybe the fact that I went into the album with such low expectations has made it seem better than what it actually is, but I am pretty confident in saying that the album is pretty freakin’ awesome.
Throughout the album I could hear various influences ranging from SLAYER to SEPULTURA to KREATOR to VOIVOD and even DEATH which makes for a pretty lethal dose of pure old-school deathy thrash metal that is uncompromising and never tries to be more than it really is. There are no modern tinges to be found here and nothing added to try and help commercialize the band’s sound, which should hold them in good stead with die-hard metal fans that dislike sellouts. I did manage to pull out a few tracks that I feel people should head straight to in THIS IS NOT PROGRESS, ITALIAN HISTORY X and OUTSKIRTS but the whole album is very listenable and I have no problem recommending it to any fans of brutal and honest deathy thrash metal.
Written By ZeeZee
Rating : 7/10
About Author
