Kin

Some albums scream "time to say good-bye" and "Kin" is among these works. Regardless of the quality of the single cuts, the entire full-length spreads an aura of hesitancy, despondency and capitulation. Moreover, already the cover indicates a lack of inspiration. It did not come as a surprise that this was the last full-length of Xentrix for a comparatively long time.

Despite these bad circumstances, the first third of "Kin" leaves a pretty good impression. "The Order of Chaos" kicks off the album, relatively powerless, but with a couple of really effective riffs and licks. Well executed slow motion thrash, so to say. "A Friend to You" and "All Bleed Red" have a darker atmosphere. The double bass comes into play and some tempo changes guarantee a more or less vibrant song structure. Xentrix show that they do not want to give up without a fight and in particular "A Friend to You" deserves a positive valuation. Yet really rapid, vehement or relentless sections are missing and it seems as if the musicians do not exactly know in which direction they want to go. The next piece illustrates their confusion in a painful manner.

"No More Time" is a cheesy, kitschy and agonizingly stupid ballad that tries to attract the attention of the mainstream in an embarrassing manner. It's a ballad by numbers, at first sight very "emotional", but in fact totally soulless, completely predictable and without any individual element at the same time. This piece of shit opens the door to lame metal stuff that follows this despicable ingratiation. All of remaining pieces are faceless, anaemic and anything else but contagious. Apart from the ballad, "See Through You" is the absolute nadir. Foreseeable, without any inspiration, excruciatingly slow - six minutes which try to lead my general affinity for metal ad absurdum. Thank God, the closer shows a more ambitious and belligerent approach while having the function of an alibi for the band with regard to their old fans. It is not an energetic thrasher, but the only track that can hold a candle to the first three pieces. Sad enough.

The addition of a poster to the first edition of the vinyl serves as evidence that the record company and Xentrix aimed high, but these ambitions stood in sharp contrast to musical offerings like "Waiting" or "Come Tomorrow". These titles reflected an almost lackadaisical attitude and stood for harmless, meandering metal that had the character of a phantom. Neither tangible nor leaving a trace, they just passed by. With regard to their thrashing past and their new weakness for commercial success at any cost, the protagonists were stuck between a rock and a hard place. This situation has never been the womb from which great tracks creep out and my consequence was clear: I decided to ignore "Scourge". From this follows that my Xentrix reviews end here. I feel a sense of relief. It's somehow sad to write about a good and talented entity that never exploited its full potential.

The adjustment album campaign that was unleashed by The Black Album brought a lot of shame to the 80’s metalhood, and very little else truth be told. Amazingly, except the mentioned Metallica opus not a single other album came close to the colossal critical and commercial success excluding Pantera, of course, and mid-90’s Sepultura to an extent. Flotsam & Jetsam and Anthrax were going up that way, at least from a critical point-of-view, but I guess the whole transformation charade was quickly dismissed by the fanbase as a bad dream that wasn’t going to last long.

Regardless, it sucked in almost every 80’s metal practitioner, including the premier UK thrash metal outfit, Xentrix. The band garnered a lot of attention by choosing to cover the popular “Ghostbusters” track, but it was their truly memorable song-writing skills, the admirable level of musicianship, and the respectful nods to the Bay-Area brotherhood that catapulted them to the higher echelons in no time. They by all means reached the early-90’s which wasn’t surprising at all with the majority of the British thrash acts still fully operational, most of them having even managed to retain their classic sound. However, our leaders here had other plans about their future development, and the album reviewed here wasn’t the fierce thrashy beast anymore.

Nothing to complain, though, as the guys had decided to follow the leaders Metallica on the way to fortune and glory. Although those never became an option for them, at least this effort is one of the better attempts at less painful metamorphoses, and “The Order of Chaos” will make it easy for the band fans to recognize their idols, not without the help of Chris Astley’s unique, characteristic semi-clean vocals that assuredly lead a heavy doom-laden cavalcade with several delectable melodic hooks. “A Friend of You” refuses to speed up, and remains within the dark mid-tempo confines with a couple of more dynamic embellishments and the staple melodic tunes. “All Bleed Red” becomes more energetic and bouncy, but “No More Time” is a 7-min heavy ballad, a good atmospheric piece which aptly summarizes the pessimistic introspective mood of the album. At this stage it’s more than clear that thrash isn’t going to play a big role anymore; as a matter of fact it’s barely covered here, but the monolithic consistent approach applied should win over the listener, especially after we add “Waiting” to the equation, a fine stomper with a cool memorable chorus; and the rousing epic semi-ballad “Come Tomorrow” which even thrashes with more passion mid-way. “Release” may come as too much, though, after a few heavy weights being another balladic anthem with a sprightly dynamic finale; and “See Through You” is pure doom, a kind of expected tribute, under the circumstances, to the voluminous doom metal scene in the guys’ homeland. Nothing like the good old thrash as a finishing touch, and “Another Day” provides exactly that, blistering retro thrash recalling their past exploits ending this effort on a somewhat unexpected, but desirable high.

A high that also had its nostalgic, sad connotations having in mind that the old school was fading fast from the social consciousness, and the fans were aware that this last piece wasn’t going to set any examples to be followed by the newcomers. At the same time, it presented Xentrix as one of the first to lay down the weapons on UK soil and turn to the dark side provided that Seventh Angel, Sabbat, Cerebral Fix, D.A.M., Slammer, and the newcomers Detritus were still delivering in the familiar classic metal way. Well, the band were always aiming higher than the rest; besides, they had to follow the winds of change if they didn’t want to fall far behind their Bay-Area peers. Alas, their illusions didn’t last very long, and after a prolonged break the guys came out with “Scourge” which also introduced the Astley replacement Simon Gordon whose colder, not as expressive antics better fitted the groove, aggro tendencies that had taken over completely. Not the most dignified exit from the scene by a long shot, this scourging effort was a logical career termination; a career that was revitalized in 2006 although Astley parted ways with his comrades again in 2013. The band are alive and well, and are surely cooking something; something that should be next of kin to the trendy at the moment old school resurrection campaign.

Want to know something I've never needed in my entire life? A picture of a thrash band on the cover of their album. There might be an exception here or there (Suicidal Tendencies comes to mind), but surely, the iconic cover art and logos are such an essential element to the genre, whether modern or retrospective, and to see Xentrix strike a pose on their third long player seemed to hint at a different wind blowing from the isles of their origin, a muse hissing a voice of change throughout the pantheon. Kin is, in fact, the point at which this promising English thrash band, who were in steady ascent through their first two records, jumped the shark, and though it's not as jilting a horror as, say Vol 8: The Threat is Real, or St. Anger, or Mourning Has Broken, it's so underwhelming that you almost feel pity for the nine tracks within.

Two of these tracks appeared on The Order of Chaos single, and represented some of the more energetic, loyal thrash fare you'll find here, but then, neither of them is highly compelling. "The Order of Chaos" itself weaves spikes of longing melody through a pattern of mutes and chords that doesn't have the riffing quality of their past compositions, and though Astley turns in a fairly emotional performance, it's nothing more than pleasant. "All Bleed Red" is one of the few real aggressors here, a song quite in line with their sophomore effort, but lacking that memorable chorus or guitar passage to number it among their better pieces. There are a few more half-assed thrashers here like "Waiting" and "A Friend to You" which also have some refined, melodic tints that recall Metallica, but unfortunately these too are not encompassed within a greater song.

But the real problem here is that the band have gone limp on us, or rather, decided to experiment with slowing some of their cuts to the point that they were more likely to hit the soft rock airwaves than the metal channel, and while I'm not completely opposed to such a transition, and Xentrix manage to hang on to barely tolerable with it, it gets a little tiring when these drawn out emotions are prevalent on so much of the album, like "No More Time", "Release", "Come Tomorrow". "See Through You" is interesting, with a tint of doom metal to it, but it's still lacking something, and by the time the band bust out the closing blitz of "Another You", the album is really beyond saving, which is a shame, because although it just sounds like a "Questions, Jr.", Kin really need more injections of energy like this to pace it out.

Kin is largely lackluster with only a few moments of the band revealing themselves, and it's no surprise that this would be the finale with Roadrunner/Roadracer Records, what with the massive decline in interest for this sort of metal, or rather, the sort Xentrix used to play. I can't help but conjure images of a prize stallion, looking good for its first few races, then succumbing to horrible injury, running slowly and painfully, before being put out of its misery. Someone needs to inform the next of kin, because by the sound of this, we've lost another one...

-autothrall
http://www.fromthedustreturned.com

This is exactly what happened with this recording. It left us ‘waiting’ for more. Do you want to know why? Quite simple: they followed the same vein of the Black Album. Not that this is a bad thing but unfortunately this is an uninteresting album. No interesting riffs, no power, no slashing solos. It is indeed friendly, radio oriented, easy to digest. Again, this is not a bad thing but when you compare it to ‘For Whose Advantage’? My friends, I get a little disappointed.

The songs range between mid to slow tempo pace. There are practically no fast songs (thrash influenced I mean). The solos are not as good as in FWA? They are most rhythm solos. The vocal lines I’d say are better. Chris is now really singing better using more texture in his voice. Oh, and forget exquisite tempo changes from past albums. The riffing parts are very similar to those from Metallica in the Black Album. Simpler, catchier, based on simple chords which lack the power and thrash from Sodom, Kreator, Seventh Angel, etc.

Take for instance: ‘All bleed red’. This is a mid tempo songs with a little faster drumming. However, it definitely lacks kicking ass power. Again, this is not a bad thing per se. If you want to listen to more technical and skilled heavy metal music, this is a good album, commercial influenced. But if you are expecting to move your head along with fast thrash, you will be scratching your head listening to this. Due to the heavy metal decadence in the beginning of the 90’s, I can perfectly understand what they were trying to do, but something went wrong and this albums simply does not fit into this bigger markets.

‘No More Time’ is a ballad. Yes a ballad in a thrash album and when ‘The Ballad’ from Testament is quite good this one has a lot of keyboards, softness, not a good solo. What were they thinking? Were they trying to emulate ‘The Unforgiven’? Who knows, but the song is, in the end, boring.

I will not detail into the rest of the songs since there sin, and you will notice it, is that they sound very similar and they provoke the feeling that you have been listening the same thing over and over. There are, in the special digipak edition, some bonus tracks, and believe it or not, these songs are faster, more powerful, and far better than those from the album, with the exception of the demos, but if you listen to Reward, that my friends, is the kind of song I would like to have at least 7 times of this album. That is what the band was originally known for. The sound mix, although good by the end of 80’s is not the problem here, is the production overall. Don’t get me wrong, I like the album since I am a fan of diversity and evolution, so, when I don’t want to listen to speedy thrash this is a good album to pick up and I actually enjoy it a lot, but if you expect Kreator, Sodom, Seventh Angel or even Toxic, this would be the wrong choice