RECLUSION
Shell Of Pain
(Listenable Records)
41:15min

I carefully listened to this album twice before reviewing just in case I missed something in the first place, but I can say now that I am glad this painful experience is over for good! This first offering from these four Swedish dudes is weak beyond belief, and I wonder how come Listenable felt the urge to sign this band. The only explanation I can find lies in the fact the label lost the mighty SOILWORK to Nuclear Blast and it was time to replace them with a similar neo-thrash band. And indeed, RECLUSION is marketed as thrash , but what we have here is rather a sort of “nu-metal” outfit. RECLUSION play a weaker version of the weakest moments from modern day SLAYER, “Roots”-era SEPULTURA (just listen to the track ‘Reclusion’ and you will know what I mean) or BIOHAZARD. This is aggro stuff, very disturbing! The vocals in particular sound atrocious, aggressive in the worst sense of the word, and too much hardcore edged for comfort (at least to a dumb metalhead like me). The songwriting was obviously rushed as none of the nine tracks on offer here shows a single memorable moment. Let’s rather talk of disjointed riffs thrown together at random to get a precise idea of what is going on throughout the aptly titled “Shell Of Pain”. It is not to say that the musicians are bad, they are in fact very talented, and the production is excellent. A lot of work was obviously put into this to come out with a class release, to no avail. If you are still interested to get this album despite all of the above is up to you. Myself, I can’t support a record which tarnish the excellency of a label I respect and which offer us superb releases on a regular basis (the last of them being the fantastic CENTURIAN one). On the other hand, if you are interested in the latest trends in the metal field, go and buy it at once!

Edouard Vergriete

Edouard Vergriete

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