keepers - 3
keeper avg .300
Joey Belladonna is back and judging from opener "Earth On Hell", so is the thrash. The songs are fast again, but gone are any hints of melody that made Persistence of Time such a brilliant work. The best songs are actually the slow ones; "In The End"**** and "Crawl"**** are refreshingly dramatic. Though the somewhat goofy "Fight Em Till You Can't"**** (I'll end you!) has a desperate glee, most of the other thrashers recede into a bland stew of angular riffs and apocalyptic imagery. It also doesn't help that the extreme compression makes every song sound harsh and shrill - when will this era of ham-fisted mixing come to an end?
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