Hailing from Toronto, Decatur play a beefy from of groove/thrash metal inspired by the Northeastern US scene (Shadow’s Fall etc), but the selling point here is the debut effort was produced by Gojira’s Joe Duplantier.

So you would expect this thing sounds great, and it does with Duplantier glossing the rhythm section with his heavy fingerprints, and sometimes his influence creeps into the otherwise thrash/groove metal as heard on the likes of the opening chords of “Worst Enemy” and specially “Shatterproof” which could have come from the last couple of Gojira albums, and end up as the albums best tracks.

Unfortunately, everything else is pretty standard, commercialized (“Vegas Girl”), if energetic groove/thrash metal. The vocals are a semi hoarse shout and the riffs while rendered with a fine guitar tone are often more rock than metal. That said these guys seem to be having fun and appear dedicated to their craft. I just wish the songs had a little more to them. When they do groove it up (“Tear You”) or thrash it up a little, it’s OK (“Internal War”, “Bottled Inside”), but hardly neck snapping. There are some hooky, catchy rock riffs like “Vegas Girl” and the title track.  But fans of a more extreme fare, will do better looking elsewhere.

There’s even a ballad-y instrumental in the form of “Internal War Pt 2” to end the album, making an already fairly soft album end on an even softer note. However, I do look forward to hearing more Duplantier produced efforts, if they sound this good.

[Visit the band's website]

---

Comments