Spanish Thrashers CRISIX’s debut album "The Menace" did surprise me somewhat totally by the band’s absolutely tight and very energetic performance on it. They became instantly one of those bands on my personal list to keep my eyes on in the future. Here’s, however, a follow-up album, titled "Rise… Then Rest", from the same bunch, so my expectations were simply running pretty high towards it as well due to their debut’s some truly nice ass-kicking values. Well, the first thing that I noticed right away about "Rise… Then Rest", there’s about 20 minutes less stuff on it than their debut had: ‘only 45 minutes’. Well, that’s about an optimal length for a Thrash Metal record, I guess – even less minutes would do just alright for me. Then the most interesting part should of course be the music itself herein, right? Well, CRISIX’s intensity and viciousness of new material is still a part of their basic sound, nothing has changed really in that department though. But in a way, probably due to even more increased amount of playing skills and stuff, they also sound more melodic, less serious, a bit more modern and experimental – and at times even a bit tedious here and there, not really as impressive or so virtuoso-like as they did on their somewhat hysterically fantastic debut of theirs, "The Menace". At their best CRISIX certainly are in their fastest and most violently burning numbers as ‘I.Y.F.F. (‘In Your Fucking Face’)’, ‘One By One’, ‘Frieza The Tyrant’ and such. Also, they have brought in some (lyrically) less serious shit onto this record, just like a song called ‘Bring ‘Em To The Pit’ so loud and clear proves. ANTHRAX or SUICIDAL TENDENCIES anyone? Then again, a small amount of variety is always welcome to a certain degree, and in CRISIX’s case it works for their advantage pretty well actually because on this follow-up record of theirs, they are still brutal and mean sounding to the deepest core of bone but brutal and mean more ‘in a funny way’. What can also be noticed CRISIX’s Punk-ish side is more present on their 2nd album, which is a cool thing in my opinion, having always been into the Punk / Hardcore stuff myself for decades. In summa summarum, "Rise… Then Rest" isn’t a bad follow-up album from CRISIX at all but doesn’t really kick our fancy butts as severely as their debut did. Nonetheless, it’s still worth checking out, definitely. Now carry on… www.facebook.com/crisixut, label: www.backgroundnoise.es