The Claw

It's nice to see a modern thrash band who avoids all the overly happy trappings of bands like Municipal Waste, but without feeling the need to emulate Slayer or particularly go in any one firmly established direction. The Claw is a band that doesn't really sound like any of the oldschool, traditional thrash bands, though this is quite simply modern thrash from first note to last. It's devoid of influences from punk, trad metal, or death, putting it in an oddly pure state which makes it, surprisingly enough, more interesting than the vast majority of modern thrash releases.

There's a very slight hardcore influence to be found; some of the more chugging riffs certainly have a pinch of hardcore flavor to them, but the overwhelmingly predominant style of this music is thrash. It's not quite as firmly rhythmic as older thrash bands, and, perhaps more surprisingly, it's very amelodic and feels no need to throw in melodic riffs just to make the listener feel safe. Riffing is mostly tremolo based and grindingly atonal (which is to say not really atonal, but less overtly melodic than the typical thrash record). The songs are fast, intricately played, and generally to the point; they might be a bit overly long from time to time ('Green Bastard' is a particular offender of this), but overall, the music is professionally written and without many of the failings that destroy so many modern thrash records.

The relative lack of outside influence makes this sound like music which came purely from the musicians themselves, and the slightly minimal bent of the songs helps drive this idea home. Rarely are tracks based around central themes, and catchiness doesn't seem to be a great priority for The Claw; the riffs are pretty incisive and attacking without being instantly memorable ala Slayer but also not atonal for the sake of atonality; this is very deliberately constructed music but the band tries hard to hide the exact purpose of what's going on. The rather linear song structures and lack of much for a listener to hold onto makes this seem more chaotic and savage than the usual thrash. There's an inherent musicality to this despite its unwillingness to compromise: the songs are laid out in an intelligent and dynamic manner, with peaks and valleys appearing regularly and making for engaging listens, but the sheer intensity of the music makes this an almost granite wall of a release with no footholds to be found.

The Claw's debut EP isn't the easiest work to describe, and it's not perfectly assembled, as the overt lack of catchiness and, well, thrashiness for want of a better term makes this a harder listen than it probably entirely should be. Still, the purity of vision that this music represents and the uncompromising nature of the band makes me want to hear more from these guys. We'll see if this was a fluke or not whenever the band gets around to releasing another item; I'll be waiting to see where they go.