Armageddon Blues

Power Trip is a unique modern crossover thrash band hailing from Dallas, Texas. “Armageddon Blues” is their four track debut 7’’ EP. Musically, there are large amounts of thrash here, but we also have a very hardcore sounding vocalist, a drummer who’s almost definitely spent most of his time playing in punk bands, and two guitarists that can successfully create heavy, crushing, thrash riff but blend it with other styles very smoothly like the non melodic hardcore you’d find off of a label like Deathwish Records with very groovy mosh-esque sections all rolled up with a very modern, original, flavor to it.

The production of this is excellent; guitars are crunchy and heavy having a tone that lies between old school crossover thrash and a more modern day hardcore like sound. But don’t get me wrong – it clearly comes with some serious balls behind it. The drums are extremely well mixed and captured, as the kit sounds great and it's presence is well felt throughout this. The bass is also very apparent in the mix, adding its own little frills here and there and adding a powerful back bone to these songs. The vocals are also up there as this is a very loud “wall of sound” like EP, but lays back the right amount allowing the songs to really crush you.

Although this EP is only four tracks long and clocks in at a little less than fourteen minutes, it’s definitely for the best. All four tracks are very groovy, heavy and memorable. There’s definitely no filler thrown in this. All musical sections seem to be pretty well thought out, and all serve purpose syncing up quite nicely with one another leaving a powerful impact. Power Trip immediately introduces you to their brand of hardcore versus thrash quite successfully as soon as the first track sharing the same as the EP, “Armageddon Blues” goes on and it keeps an even pace throughout the other three songs in a similar vein, but important enough to garner a spot on the track listing.

Overall I was very impressed with this. I’d like to consider myself having my finger constantly on the pulse of modern metal releases no matter how large or small scale and I’m very surprised these guys slipped through my radar as this was released two years ago at the time of writing this. If you think you’d like the hybrid of an original sounding modern crossover thrash band having a good splash of hardcore thrown in the mix I would definitely suggest checking this out.