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Roarback

Face The Sun EP

Written by: PP on 03/01/2013 21:07:39

The life of aspiring Danish thrash metal bands has become quite a bit more difficult in recent years thanks the massive success of Essence both in the studio and as a live band. They've stepped up the thrash game to a completely different level, and as such have become the de facto benchmark against which all new releases are compared to in the genre. That's a mountain bigger to climb than Denmark even physically owns with its geography, which Roarback regretfully discover on their debut EP "Face The Sun", which was released just about a year ago.

Roarback play a brand of vicious, aggressive thrash metal with pedal firmly attached to the floor for the most part, but on occasion also fuse it with macho metal elements (think Sepultura's thick, muscular rumble for instance) for some variety. Examples? "I Will Find You" is a traditional Bay Area thrash song inspired by the evil speeds of Slayer, but then "My World" follows with a slowed down, punishing sound that's more interested in being as heavy and boneheaded as possible in the oh-so-typical Danish metal manner than in actual songwriting.

My advice? Roarback need to tune away from this style (and any other death metallish stuff they have on the mix) and concentrate on pure thrash metal as they do on a couple of tracks here. That's where they are at their strongest with slaying riffs and solid aggression-levels, and suddenly the songs are more interesting as well. The vocals need heavy work though (too monotonous and uncharismatic as they are now) as does the production, but being a debut EP we'll forgive them slightly for these mishaps. Still, if the benchmark is Essence, there's virtually no reason to listen to records like "Face The Sun" until the bands behind them improve significantly in all departments.

Download: I Will Find You
For the fans of: unpolished, underproduced thrash/macho metal
Listen: Facebook

Release date 15.01.2012
Self-Released