Insanety

Israel could never be proud of having many Thrash bands, and the local bands who did play Thrash always disbanded after releasing just a demo or two, even though the demos that bands like Amaxez (R.I.P. 1988-1992) and Hangman (2002-2006) release were good. Actually there was never any local Thrash band that released a full length album! That’s why when I heard about Strident, a local band that plays Thrash, I immediately contacted them and after getting their demo even decided to make an interview with them!

So what do we have here? Usually I don’t review each song separately, but this release should be reviewed this way in my opinion, since it’s pretty varied and heterogeneous, even though it could be longer (14 minutes lasting in total). It consists of 4 song, as I said - mainly characterized by lots of musical variation (in the good sense of it) and a Vokiller that reminds me a lot of Korrozia Metalla’s Borov’s voice from their first 4 classic albums.

The first song, “Fuckin’ Army” starts with a catchy bass riff and then all the instruments join, playing the same riff, but in half a minute this song turns it into a very aggressive and intense, Sodom inspired anti-military anthem! Great dose of intense Metal to start a discography with, featuring also a fast and sharp sounding solo and VERY angry vocarnage!

The next song “Insanety” (I have no idea what’s the story behind the mistakenly written song and album title) starts with another catchy riff, followed by Tom Araya-like scream, but this song is mostly played in mid-tempo, though the chorus is simply INSANE, especially because of the back-vocal shouts, after which all I can understand only the Demon’s (the Vokiller) encouraging statement “I’m not insane! I’m not insane!”. Brilliant!

The third and the forth songs are less forward-Thrash sounding and more influenced by more classic Heavy Metal and Hard Rock, yet they still have their dose of aggression, mainly in the drumming in the faster parts and the vokillz. The third song “Dark Reign” moves between slow and mid tempo and has cool anti-religious lyrics. The last song “Major Pain” reminds me of Megadeth’s “Rust In Peace... Polaris”, even the Vokiller here sounds a bit similar to Dave. The last minute of this song though is really calm, and since this song was recorded with the previous vokiller Scorcher there is also a calm, clean voice. But of corpse it ends with a fast Thrashy riff in the end!

Overall this demo offers a nice, interesting dose of well done Oldschool Metal. The production is very good and ALL the instruments can be very well heard here, including the bass, which adds a lot. It may not sound so original, but definitely doesn’t sound boring, monotonous or repetitive and serves well the needs of pretty any kind of Thrasher, be it a Germaniac or the more harmless Bay Area-like sound fan. I hope to hear more stuff from this band in the near future!