Armament

I ran across this band when I saw them open up for Toxic Holocaust and Holy Grail at the cobalt cafe last year. When I saw them I thought to myself “Dang, this dudes sound good.” The guitarists were ripping apart their guitars. The drummer was head banging like a maniac while playing very good drums. It was just sad to not see a pit start for them. I told myself maybe they are just appreciating good musicianship, because I do not want to believe that people did not enjoy their performance. What I will say is this; their bass player lacked attitude and performance. Maybe that is what brought them down. After they finished playing I went up to the singer, talked to him, and bought a copy of their demo. Let me start of by saying that this EP was worth the money I paid for.

Over the past years, we have seen a lot of thrash bands come up and picked up where the 80's thrash bands left off at. We got bands like Warbringer, Bonded By Blood, Diamond Plate, etc. And now we can add to that list Armament. The disc consists of five blistering songs: Total Regime...Rise of Death, Blue Code of Silence, Fight, Paranoia of Conspiracy, and Metal Maniac. The whole album has that raw but clean sound we all like to hear in our thrash and not one part of the album makes you want to stand still. Instead, it has the reverse effect of wanting to destroy everything. Let me start off with guitars.

The guitars are heavily distorted to the point where every single note can be heard. These guys do not stop their creativity when it comes to writing riffs. Every single one of them builds a different personality making the whole album sound very diverse. For example, the beginning riff in "Blue Code" has a very technical feel to it. As the song progresses, you hear them change into a riff that puts heaviness into their metal. The power chords inserted in between the triplet open notes just makes it sound so dark. On the other hand, "Fight" has an intro riff that gives away their punk influence incorporation. But as the song progresses and goes into the verse, it goes into a very speed-metal influence. The E string being mistreated as if it was a slayer song. Every single song has its own personality, and that is great to hear. Now the solos in the album are awesome. Both guitar players have a different sound that makes them versatile to each other. You got your solos that have technicality implemented and imprinted very well. Like the one in Paranoia of Conspiracy. The guitar goes up and down the fret board, shredding like a beast. And then we got the other guitar player that plays very old school style. You can hear influences that range from Iron Maiden, all the way to Metallica.

Now their bass player has a very simple sound. Throughout the whole song I heard a lot of guitar bass riffs, but their where bass parts that to me stand out from the rest of the band. For example, in the middle of the song "Fight." there is a jazz walk bass line inserted in there. It sounds awesome! You got the guitar players playing one thing and for this section of the song it seems like the bass line is actually the lead making the whole thing sound very distinctive. Then you got the bass in "Paranoia of Conspiracy." The end of the song has a simple progression of the bass, but it is brilliant. Feels very punk driven, but adds darkness and mystery to it.

Next, we got the drums. We got the heavy metal incorporation. We got the punk-style drumming inserted to make thrash. But the difference is the insertion of experimental drumming. What i mean about this is that the drummer plays none metal drumming perfectly into the music creating a different sound. I want to say it is funk or some sort of jazz drumming. But whatever it is, i think it works great in creating the Armament sound. The song "Metal Maniac" has a break in the middle of the song in which this drumming is presented. When you first hear the guitar riff, in your mind you feel like he is about to take the drums into a mid tempo drumming. But when the drums come in, it plays a very rhythmic drumming. The type of drumming you would hear in an Earth, Wind, and Fire album. It is insane. And this just makes the rest of the song awesome because it builds excitement to it. That is the brilliance of the drummer. He incorporated something you wouldn't really hear in metal and made it sound exquisite.

Now the last thing is the vocals. In my opinion, they are great. I've always liked singers that sing clearly and are understandable. Singers like Sean Harris, Paul Di'anno, Chuck Billy, and Joey Belladonna. You can hear that some of these singers are an influence to the singer because there are parts where he sings high and parts where he sings low. Lyrics are exceptional and are performed with power. The ways they are sung are also very catchy. My personal favorite is the last section of "Paranoia." The singer does a call and responds type of singing with the rest of the band. It reminds me so much of Suicidal Tendencies. I will say though that the singing for "Metal Maniac" could have been cleaner better or sang better. To me it sounded like the singer was tired and just forced it through. Nevertheless, they are outstanding vocals.

Overall I recommend every thrash metal lover to check this band out. They are very clean and sound like what we like to hear in a band. I saw and discovered them by accident, and now as a fan feel like I must help to expose their music to the rest of the world. So check them out if you haven't, and make sure to get a copy of this disc before they run out.

Recommended songs: Paranoia of Conspiracy, Fight