Oppression - State Of War

*=Staff's pick	State Of War* Infected Youth Path To Consequence* Forced Into Fire

Genre	Thrash Metal	Olof Wikstrand	Vocals
Tracks	4	Tor Nyman	Guitar
Runningtime	23 Min.	Joachim Törnqvist	Guitar
Label		Fredrik Petersson	Bass
Release	18 March 2006	Jakob Strand	Drums
Country	Sweden	-	Keyboards
Similar artists	Death Angel, Anthrax, Exodus, Megadeth

Swedish town Falkenberg, where Oppression hail from, is being the swedish equivalent to the San Francisco Bay Area if you are to believe the band. And judging by their sound I am starting to believe them since there is no doubt from which part of the world Oppression has gathered their inspiration. State Of War is their fourth demo and was recorded in early 2006 and is produced, engineered, mixed and mastered by the band themselves. We are simply dealing with the some most pleasurable old-school thrash here, influenced by the eighties thrash scene, something that can be heard very easily. And the most obvious influences come perhaps by some of the more technical bands from that time, and then I am thinking of Death Angel and Megadeth in particular.

First songs State Of War is speedy with a distinctive pounding bass and has a technical approach and to me this is very much similar to Death Angel, and further greatly captivating. The melodic break gives a nice touch to the song where the bass is pounding in the back while a guitar delivers some nice melodic and calmer lines before it is back to the more mosh oriented parts. It continues with Infected Youth that is more harmonic with the guitars although still quite speedy and vocalist Olof Wikstrand sounds not to far from a young Dave Mustaine, with other words you can say it is not the best vocalist but perfectly suiting for the music.

Path To Consequence is still holding the same style but in a more held back way. It is a little darker with more of a Testament vibe surrounding it while the closing track Forced Into Fire is more straight-ahead with an Exodus groove with the riffing guitars in the middle.

The State Of War demo from Oppression is surely mosh-friendly and gives you a nice injection of old school thrash. Although, the band could do better, even if the guitars comes out rather well. There is some improvement that can be done with the tightness in the band. The song writing is actually very good, and the band shows proof of good musicianship with the sometimes complex structures and technical playing but I believe that also this can be better. Oppression is good, but with just a little fix of things here and there I think they can be really great.

Production	Vocals	Compositions
5	6	7

Summary
7 chalices of 10 - Thomas