From Within

So I was at the 99 cent store down the street checking out the little rack of old cassettes and CDs they had. As usual you'd find a heap of unknown failed artists as well as Bob Denver plays and sings christmas carols type crap, but one CD caught my eye, and looked a tad different from the rest of the junk. I thought oh why not it might be something good, hell what do I have to lose, my juice money (if I was back in 2nd grade again)? Well, in case you didn't know I'm real picky with my music, especially my thrash, I bring it home and it's pretty damn good! This is a band who apparently had been around a long time trying endlessly to get signed, even while the hay-day of thrash came and went right under their noses. But the thought of such perseverence, and especially getting signed with this type of music in 1995, the absolute peak of America's boy band pop and rap fame, is awe-inspiring to me and my band. Anyway, more about the CD, its certainly worthy of a headbang or two. The production is excellent, the drums sound alot like Death's Symbolic album. The guitars have a real Pantera tone to them, the bass has the cracky midrange sound that I love, and the singer sounds like Symphony X!
But as for the music itself, aside from the heavy singing, chugging guitars, and occasional double bassing, it's pretty lackluster. It seems to have a little bit of everything throughout the 12 tracks, but sometimes too much of the elements used. I heard a breakdown where the guitars cut out leaving the bass and drums to jam, maybe a good 6-7 times in the cd. A technical harmonized riff would catch my ear, but then it was back into another run of the mill chugging riff. Not to sound arrogant at all, but it is as if I were to just start jamming and jotting down all the riffs I'd get without sifting through the mediocre ones, and just cobbling them up into pretty textbook arrangements, I'd have myself an album very parrallel to this. But hey you know what, I'm gonna give this band the upper hand just because it sounded like they put their hearts into it, besides, who'd want to only listen to the best of the best all the time? That would get boring. I'd compare this band to going to a fast food joint and instead of ordering the high quality 7 dollar double burger with cheese combo, just having the 99 cent cheeseburger that contain nothing more than buns, meat, and cheese. Ironic, the CD itself was 99 cents. Anywho, so if your in the mood for Sacred Reich-esque heavy/thrash tunes, pick up this CD, if you can even find it. In fact, I dont know who will even end up reading this review, there have been garage bands that had spread their name better than this band. But my hats off to all who tried so hard to keep the spirit of metal alive, no matter how successful or not their venture turned out.

In my opinion, the top 5 of the album =
- After the Red
- From Within
- No Future
- Poisoned Pollution
- Sidewinder