I last heard this Swiss band back in 2014, with their debut Morning Wood. It was a solid if forgetful stab at 00s American metalcore/ groove metal with songs like “Big Dick”, “Sex For Free”, Cock n Bulls”, and “Welcome to the Stud Farm”, it all seemed a bit tongue in cheek.

Well the band has apparently matured since then with one album since, that have not heard, called Purge and Purify, that gets rid of those tongue in check vibes on favor of more serious traditional metal tropes. And that appears to continue for album number 3, the very seriously named Acheron.

With this more mature attitude (songs titles like “Rotting Crows”, “Salem”, “Mass Grave” and “Holy Venom”) comes improved song writing and evolution as Acheron is pretty darn solid. It still has a bit of an Unearth /Shadows Fall thrashy metalcore ‘modern metal’ vibe but with an added element of pure melodic death metal and regular death metal. I think they could now be compared to the likes of Sylosis (though I have not heard the new one).

Big crunchy guitars deliver a wide array of thrashing, blasting and grooving riffs and a couple of the songs I’d even go so far as to say are really fucking good, like “One Way Overdose” with its furious blast and nice thrash jaunt or lumbering “Mass Grave” with surprising cello/orchestral outburst.

The album avoids clean whines or ballads, sticking to a pretty thunderous approach from start to finish, resulting in a solid album from a band I didn’t think I’d hear from again, and certainly not this impressively.

[Visit the band's website]

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