Humanity on Parole

This formation was founded by escapees from the “perfidious” snare of Randy Meinhard, the mainman of the progressive thrashers Sacrosanct and a former Pestilence shredder, who let three of his colleagues go once they got the job done, to shoot him into the underground spotlight with the first two masterpieces.

The mentioned colleagues, the drummer Ronny Scholten, the bass player Gerrit Knol, and the vocalist Michael Lucarelli didn’t waste much time and assembled this formation for the release of the pretty good Bay-Areasque debut. In fact, Scholten had departed the Sacrosanct ship a bit earlier, and he was the one who actually founded this outfit as the others joined him when this entity was already officially registered in the annals of the Dutch musical authorities.

So our friends had voted to remain faithful to the old school canons as evident from the first showing; an admirable stance, and also one that wasn’t going to help them last very long on the scene. Cosmetic alterations were in stall, though, and the album reviewed here fell prey to them… well, that’s an exaggeration as the delivery doesn’t stray too much from the retro thrash formula; it’s just that the lengthy progressive compositions that were the core of the previous opus are nowhere to be found.

The band settle for a more immediate approach built around more concrete, shorter tracks without too much progressive ado. A couple of heavier aggro-rhythms ("Too Good to Be True", the steam-rolling "Intentions Rule the World") have found their way into the soundscapes, but both the more intricate riffage and the excellent bass presence elevate them way above the average vociferous Pantera tributes. The speedy, more old school-based "Dedicated" livens up the situation leading to the revelation that is "Mirror Images", a compact fast-paced Bay-Areasque roller-coaster that would have been a highlight on Heathen’s “Victims of Deception” even. And that’s not all cause later on there’s another piece, "Dragons to Slay" that tries to achieve the same level of contrived dynamic shredding without again outstaying its welcome, stirring the established more linear current the latter logically finalized by the air-headed crossover anthem "Face the Facts".

Overall this effort is almost as convincing as its predecessor the guys nodding in several directions, but never very readily and agreeably, holding their own along the way the resultant blend reminiscent of the one achieved on the works of the Americans Forte, arguably the finest classic/modern school blenders from those times. Lucarelli’s vocals side more with the new vogues this time, though, the man semi-shouting in a hoarse hardcore-ish fashion, partially abandoning his more composed antics from the debut and the Sacrosanct albums.

The guys stayed together all the way to 2005, but nothing else was produced. They changed their name to just Genetic in the new millennium but the scheduled full-length never materialized as they failed to find an interested label to release it. This led to another transformation to Why She Kills, a melodic modern thrash/death metal hybrid the “she” part from the name justified with the addition of two female singers, one gruff, the other clean. Two workmanlike Arch Enemy-inspired EP’s came out before the band switched to their original moniker in 2009. Nothing new yet, the guys are still pondering over their next step which may as well prick humanity’s current old school snare.