Strike

This is nasty. Rarely has a band achieved such a balance of order and chaos on disc as on Axis Of Advance's debut full-lengther. While their sophomore effort The List is somewhat more compact and overall faster (as well as sporting a thicker guitar sound), Strike tops it slightly simply by mixing things up more and allowing the sound to breathe a little while still smashing you over the head with pure nastiness.

The music here doesn't really fit into any specific genre: it's a boiling cauldron of death, thrash, hints of grind, and an almost industrialist sense of mechanical clinicism smelted down into an all-encompassing metal war machine. Vocally, Wor's exhortations range from strangled rasps to a deep growl and an acrid bark, and they're mixed just right - not too loud, but not buried either.

The opener "Evanescent Judgement of the Last Era" is quite demented, a twisting, turning battle of instruments seemingly determined to tangle themselves into a mangled mess, but escaping with it's flow intact. Later on, "Structural Interpretation Via Superfluous Union" injects some bizarre angelic choir vocals into the shredding speed-assault, while "Absolute Conviction In The Accolade" is simply a nasty, uncompromising boot to the head, pure violence made sound. The drumming here, courtesty of the ever-demented James Read, is a savage display of kit abuse, as if he's not so much concerned with playing his drums as beating them into absolute submission. Meanwhile, the guitar/bass tandem jumps from one riff to another, dwelling on each one long enough to drive it through your skull, never sacrificing coherence in the process. This is high-brow music designed to sink it's hooks into the most bestial part of the musical consciousness.

Almost as impressive as the music are this album's lyrics. A complete concept album told from the protagonist's perspective, it tells the tale of an Astral journeyman visited by a vision of his destiny: to build two pyramids in the Egyptian desert, completing the work of the aliens who build the 5 existing ones, thus causing the sun to supernova and destroy the war-torn planet. With the help of a young boy with absurd telekinetic powers, he is able to go about his task, until an outside influence threatens to undo all his work... but I won't ruin a good story by telling you the ending. Suffice to say, the lyrics are top-notch, flawlessly written and a vital part of this album's appeal. Anyone with an appreciation for epic, chaotic-yet-ordered extreme metal owes it to themself to check out Axis Of Advance.