The second album of California based band Hemotoxin is one that counts. They are described as a progressive death/thrash band and I can understand why, although the term progressive is not the one I should use. I would say technical instead of progressive. Perhaps the sporadic used Voivod or Atheist influences could be called progressive?
The first band I had to think of listening to this album is Death. The singing is a bit in Chuck style and sometimes I have to think of John Tardy also. The riffs and music has a lot of elements of their ‘Human’ and ‘Individual Thought Patterns’ period. A band like Obscura can be named as influence as well. Technical death metal with a lot of vintage thrash elements (think Megadeth, Slayer), tempo changes and fine melodic guitar solos. The bass lines in the songs give them depth and a certain groove. Instead of writing songs of 6 minutes long with regular repeats of parts, the band puts all their skills and technical ability in short alternating tracks without exaggerating and showing off.
The first instrumental track is very fast and has some devestating riffs. The next song sounds like a combination of Slayer, Kreator and Death with again some very heavy riffs. “Minus Human” starts with a kind of jazzy bass intro (Cynic) and then turns into a song that could have been on a Death album. The next tracks are a nice mix of thrash and technical death, which comes to a real climax in the instrumental track “A Journey To Dreams”. This rather short album doesn’t bore a second and I’m sure technical death/thrash fans will like this!
Tracklist:
01. Decadence
02. Regression
03. Minus Human
04. Not Of This World
05. Forgotten Faces
06. The Alchemist
07. Bleak Prognosis
08. A Journey To Dreams
09. Transparent Eyes
Playing time: 35:00
Release date: 15 April 2016
Label: Unspeakable Axe Records
Website: www.facebook.com/hemotoxin
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