The Curse...

Thrash metal is distinguished by its propensity for nastiness, and thus bands within its sphere are differentiated by varying degrees of nastiness mixed with other stuff. An analogy to alcoholic beverages is naturally in order, not merely because of its obvious association with the genre, but also because the degrees of alcohol content help to make the aforementioned nuances a bit more clear. One might liken such melodically driven early bands such as Anthrax and Metallica to a thick English Porter, being heavy enough but naturally not quite a singular knockout blow, where as early pioneers of what became death metal such as Slayer, Sepultura and Possessed were firmly entrenched in the category of 120 proof liquor. While in the beginning there wasn't quite an equivalent to Everclear, by the late 80s to early 90s when death metal was encroaching upon thrash's territory as the most extreme style, bands like Demolition Hammer and Sodom responded with something along those lines. The same sort of highly combustible fury of vindictive rage that typified the small number of hold out albums circa 1992 that refused to go fully into death metal territory despite seeming to want to is to be found in E-Force's latest studio outing The Curse. It presents itself as a bone-shatteringly percussive killing machine, blowing out buildings left and right with a battering ram of guitar driven power and shatter windows with a primal screaming vocal assault that would make Miland Petrozza and Max Cavalera proud. The only area where this album tends away from that sort of final swan song of older school, speed happy thrashing is the overall tempo, which tends to be a bit more groovy and moderated, though still well removed from the slower sub-genre spinoff that Pantera pioneered during the same time period that this reaches back for. It becomes pretty clear from the onset that this band knows their thrash history fairly well and does take occasional steps to avoid sounding too much like a throwback to a specific period. The somewhat ironically melodic and somber “Mass Deception” occasionally veers into a Swedish death/black sound, dredging up some ideas that might have been explored by Dissection or At The Gates, though it leans a bit closer to a Destruction character. Similarly, somewhat long yet crushing cruisers like “Perverse Media” and “Psyclone” have an almost power metal bent in line with more recent releases out of Destruction, though the vocal work is a bit throaty and garbled for anything Schmier has done. “Devoured” also takes an interesting route that seems to want to channel some early Discharge influences alongside the battery of early 90s extreme thrashing. The ultimate picture is definitely one of power and determination, a becoming feature for a power trio in this style, especially one hailing from Canada originally (though they've relocated to France) where bands tend to be a bit more technical and smooth rather than jagged and raw. Nevertheless, the lead guitar wizardry out of Jerome Point is pretty fancy, though more in a Kirk Hammett with even more venting licks kind of way than the too-many-notes-Mozart hyper-technical style of Jeff Waters. The songs run a little bit long at times, but the formula at work here is definitely well realized and should definitely rope in some Destruction and Sodom fans hungry for more ear-shattering goodness.