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Threat Signal - Under Reprisal


*
=Staff's pick

One Last Breath
Seeing Red
Rational Eyes*
As I Destruct*
A New Beginning*
Counterbalance
Inane
Now
Faceless
Haunting
When All Is Said And Done


Genre Thrash Metal
Jon Howard
Vocals
Tracks 11
Rich Howard
Guitar
Runningtime 47 Min.
Kyle McKnight
Guitar
Label Nuclear Blast
Marco Bressette
Bass
Release 26 May 2006
George Parfitt
Drums
Country Canada
-
Keyboards
Similar artists Fear Factory, Soilwork

These newcomers hail from Canada, and with their debut album Under Reprisal they hope to make an impact on the metal scene. However, the genre of thrash metal with elements of melodic death metal is rather overpopulated by now, which is why you need to bring something extraordinary to the table if you want to last long in the game. The question is, does Threat Signal have what it takes?

Well, the opening of Under Reprisal is quite solid, actually. The breakthrough hit Rational Eyes is a pounding thrash-piece, with verses that remind slightly of Meshuggah and a catchy melody in the chorus. It gets even more interesting with tracks like A New Beginning and the best song of the album, As I Destruct. The latter has a languishing chorus, and the ending is rather epic, with both strings and keyboards. If the combination thrash with electronic passages sound a bit like Fear Factory, it's not strange since Christian Olde Wolbers is handling the production.

Halfway through, however, the pattern start to look a bit too familiar, and some glitches also become evident. For example, it bothers me that the vocalist Jon Howard's clean vocals sound very much like Chester Bennington of Linkin Park, and his growls are rather standard. But the major concern is that so many tracks on the second half on Under Reprisal are so unimaginative, even if the electronic bits scattered around occasionally sparks the interest. A track like Counterbalance is rather decent (but would certainly not have made the cut on Soilwork's Stabbing The Drama) but the title on track nine, Faceless, says the most about this release. Many of the songs lack character, and the thing to cherish the most is instead the slick production.

A few good songs hint that Threat Signal can be a band worth remembering after all, but as of now this is neither hard nor melodic enough to affect. We have heard this several times before, and we have heard it better.

Production
Vocals
Compositions

8

5

5

 
Summary



5 chalices of 10 - Niklas

Related links:

www.myspace.com/threatsignal