The Positive Pressure (Of Injustice)

The second Extrema full-length came out in a period in which Pantera was a well-established band in the groove metal panorama. If even the first album by Extrema was already a bit influenced by Phil Anselmo band’s style, this second one is the climax of this transformation. The groove influences play the main role inside this album and the pure thrash metal influences are not that present anymore. They can be sporadically found when the band decides to play a bit faster or harder but nothing more. The distortion of the guitars, the production and the way Perotti sings, all is bounded to Pantera.

One of the most impulsive episodes of the album is already present with the first song “This Toy”. The punk drops fall in a sea of grooving riffs creating a good contrast to maintain quite high levels of intensity. The up tempo beats are not exactly the thrash ones but they are good in style and the quite bombastic production does the rest. The guitars are massive and the funky breaks-in are quite present, along with the classic Pantera mid-paced parts that come with the solos. The title track is maybe the very first complete example of strong Pantera influences because the riffs are pounding on the mid-tempo structure. The whole style is simple, direct and quite catchy, like the groove metal commands. “Fear” features quite weird vocal parts by the beginning even if this time a few riffs are more personal. The style doesn’t change and the doomy parts are full of crunchy riffs, the structure is monotonous and not that great with all those stop and go sections.

“Money Talks” is more dynamic even if we don’t go beyond the classic groove metal style with more stop and go riffs, quite pissed off, lower vocals and the classic metallic bass behind. “Confusion” features a mess (!) of strange parts, wa-wa bass picks, sudden faster restarts and the classic mid-paced sections. Everything now is thought to make big monkeys-like fat guys jump and this bores me a lot. “Grey” is raging but the damn lame chorus is something stupid like also the more melodic touch of a few parts that simply doesn’t fit in this style. Better to avoid the following “Like Brothers” because it goes on with the same three riffs over and over gain, with no anger at all. At this point my boredom is almost at the top as “To Hell” injects some energy with up tempo sections even if we fall into mediocrity on several sections.

“On your Feet, on Your Knee” could have been better without those silly funky interludes even if the whole song is not exceptional. What I cannot stand are the vocals on hardcore style with that low tonality and the harmless menacing style. The last “Tell Me” is good if you want to hear a few Korn influences to complete the scene. They come for the acoustic parts or the gloomiest sections but the rest remains on cleaner vocals and slow patters. Holy monkeys, this is too much. For my tastes, Extrema stopped their career with the first album and I even exaggerate because Tension at the Seams was not great either. This is not thrash and even the groove here is quite bad. Please, avoid.