Justified Atrocities

The technical/progressive/thrash metal lovers have no reasons to complain whatsoever: in recent years the scene has been filled up with ambitious young acts to answer their prayers for serious, complex, mind-stimulating musical horizons. Replacire, Hybris, Torrefy, Ripper, Skeptor, Vektor, Black Fast, Abuser, Omega Defender, Untimely Demise, Trecelence, Dimesland… the list can certainly be extended by a few more names. It almost feels like the late-80’s again the newcomers still receiving some valuable lessons by extant veterans like Mekong Delta, Helstar, and Paradox. Trecelence, four young lads from Santa Rosa, California, are distinguished representatives of this new wave of talents with a demo, an EP, and a full-length; let’s hope they don’t stop here having already achieved this proverbial triple.

Not very likely since the band have already accumulated enough inertia to keep them churning albums on a more or less regular basis, hopefully of the same high quality; because the album reviewed here is a sheer gem. The “Acidic Demise” EP was a handsome display of profound musical skills seeing an act with a penchant for fairly speedy execution of the good old technical thrash with echoes of Toxik (“World Circus”, above all), Realm, Paradox and more obscure entities like Midas Touch and Terrahsphere. The opener here, “Into the Gateway”, is no sloucher either, although at times it recalls the purer speed metal acts from The States like earlier Helstar and Agent Steel, the guys taking it easy on the very technical histrionics. The following “Shrapnel Surroundings” is already a formidable technicaller the guys lashing fast’n tight the insane shredding assisted by the high-strung clean vocals which only at times kind of lack the range for this hyper-active kind of music the way Ski (Deadly Blessing), Franz Herde (Sieges Even), and Alan Tecchio (Watchtower) do. “Systematic Intimidation” begins early with the guitar acrobatics, and later on it becomes a labyrinth of schizoid riffs which the band admirably manage to keep within the mid-tempo confines for a large portion of the time. “Corpratocracy” is a psychotic headbanger the “cacophony” put under control in the second half where the cutting riff-patterns also exude a lot of melody.

“Beyond the Grey” is a noteworthy speed/thrasher which is intent on not losing even a bit of the initial speedy inauguration including on the sprawling lead passage which occupies half the playing time. “Adenda 21” has another “agenda”, and the technical whirlwind at the beginning tells a different story the band creating a “storm” of impetuous, amorphous thrashing which gallops forward in the best tradition of Helstar’s “Nosferatu” and Forbidden’s debut the stride “broken” by another spastic appearance of technical, stop-and-go quirks. “Burning the Pendulum” “flirts” with more orthodox rhythms on a heavy dramatic base; the drama reaches Toxik’s “Think This” proportions in the middle the band refusing to speed up lashing in a progressive, escalating manner; weird atonal melodies and leads ”invade” the scenery in the second half. “Under the Elusive Sky” speed/thrashes in the most beautifully chaotic way, but more linear galloping sections come before long to “fight” with the twisted screamy leads their battle turning into grotesque, illogical Mekong Delta-sque surreality mid-way. “Battle Beneath the Skull” tries something calmer and balladic for a start, but the guys begin to weave their puzzling riff-patterns way before this peaceful stroke turns into a tendency; the band “cook up” another undecipherable “salad” of bizarre hectic rhythms in the middle the unbearable intricacy relieved by relatively more standard fast-paced sections. The closing “Aridscape” gives a chance to the bass player to display his skills at the beginning, but the ultra-stylish rifforamas resume after a few seconds the guys resisting to the speedy parametres for at least half the time; still, the second half is a wild dynamic “gathering” where riffs, leads and melodies “shake hands” to make this number an eventful 7.5-min saga.

The rolling, spinning riff-patterns create the impression that at times the band just noodle around for the sake of showing-off, so dense is the supply of intricate time and tempo-shifts within one song. Its manic shredding also resembles tech-speedy exploits like Deathrow’s “Life Beyond” and the Dutch Expulsion’s “Wasteland”, but this one here is filled to the brim with labyrinthine, winding into infinity structures which seamlessly flow from one track to another. It’s probably good that the band have provided a memorable intro on nearly every piece (a balladic, lead, melodic, or bass-driven sketch); otherwise we would have nearly an hour of super-elaborate, hyper-active melee with “Wow!” and “Ah!” exclamations emitted by the fans who would want to give this offering another spin immediately in order to be able to remember at least a small part of it. Fortunately, the guys exercise tight control over their musical proficiency and seldom let their imagination fly towards highly mathematical, abstract territories.

One may be curious to check how a less organized, more dishevelled rendition of their arsenal would sound. A slab of metal where chaos reigns supreme with little interference on the side of reason; something like the thrash analogue to the psychotic macabre tapestries of extreme formations like Portal and Krallice. I have the sneaking feeling that Trecelence may be up to this very “ambitious bucket” challenge; and that their next “atrocity” may be quite a shift from our established musical perceptions...