Corrupted Harmony

With their debut album Hellixxir successfully added some inventive touches to the standard thrash metal formula. Corrupted Harmony is the second studio album by the French innovative thrash metal quartet. The CD was released back in 2011 through Symbol Muzik, a division of the well-established French label Brennus Music. Compared to their previous effort, this full-length showed some definite improvement in both production and songwriting. As a matter of fact, while Corrupted Harmony introduced noticeable refinements in the band's sound, most of the familiar elements remained unchanged. Virtually, one cannot help but feel that basically it's still the same aggressive Hellixxir but with additional twists in the music. The sound of the album is significantly heavy and the general feel much more varied than previously.

I should start by saying that the cover of Hellixxir’s Corrupted Harmony is simply nothing short of laughable. Fortunately the music on this full-length is a lot better than that! Throughout the album one cannot help but admit that Hellixxir is out to prove a point and that is that they and they alone should be looked at as the reigning kings of modern French thrash metal. If that sounds like an over exaggeration, listen to the album yourself. Matter-of-factly, Corrupted Harmony is an energetic piece of work, and if an album like this had been put out 20 years earlier it could have become a minor cult favorite by now. For this album, Hellixxir genuinely combined the in-your-face, fast tempo songs of old-school thrash metal bands with the more structured, architected and melodic aspects of death metal riffing. One can also notice some convincing black and even slight heavy metal influences. Despite the fact that we only get 10 tracks to sink our teeth into, each song is well worth it. The album is given a great start with the somewhat Possessed-ish Punishment, and from then on it continues in the same frantic vein without the slightest drop in intensity. The second track, Blood Writings, has a beginning hearkening back to old Entombed, but quickly turns into blast beats galore with another solid song for the listeners’ instant pleasure. How best to describe Oppressions? To put it bluntly, just look at the title, it says it all! And so it all comes down to this: Bloody Mary is unquestionably Hellixxir’s best song. Literally I can’t put it any simpler than that.

For those of you not familiar with Hellixxir’s newly defined sound let me give you a quick overview. Above all, the music seems to give a nod towards the conventional European chaotic and brutal thrash/death metal sound while paying tribute to the American originators of the same genre and adding their own trademark extreme metal riffs. As soon as you put in the album prepare to be hit with primitive guitar parts that almost perfectly combine originality, technicality and ferociousness into a solid force. Guitarists, Matthieu Laforêt and Arnaud Loubry lay down one transcendent thrash/death riff after another. They also manage to inject some melody into their playing. All in all, the guitars are heavy enough in sound to keep the aggression boiling just below the surface. On the one hand, bass usually follows the guitars, but on the other hand one cannot help but notice that on several tracks they are completely merged with the drums. Speaking of the drums, the drum parts are among the fastest, more powerful and complex in modern thrash metal music. An important thing to note about the vocals on this album is that they tend to be darker and more morbid than archetypal thrash metal vocals. De facto the vocals are generally high-pitched and raspy also they are mixed with death grunts or some unclean and melodic passages. Frankly, I'd personally rate them as no more than mediocre.

In summation, I was unsure of what to expect from Corrupted Harmony but definitely a delightful aggressive death/thrash record, this turned out to be! In effect one cannot help but be impressed by such an ambitious work. On the other hand people looking for retro thrash metal will probably get highly frustrated. Finally, I should admit that despite the admirable talent shown on this full-length I still prefer Hellixxir's phenomenal and relatively amateurish debut album War Within. I will certainly be waiting the upcoming release in order to follow the evolution of the band.