French newcomers Korrosiah are here to frighten with their debut album. Except that 'Creepy Feelings' isn't frightening at all, but offers a variety of thrash metal. This is quite a diverse album. Are Korrosiah still searching for their style or what is it about with this diversity, then?

'Zodiac' starts the album with high-octane thrashing. It really harks back to 1980s, but never sounds outdated or copycatting anything. The production is truly suitable, even though with today's punch. No need to fear for triggers or electronic sounds here! 'Greed' is a mid-paced song with some hardcore elements in it, mainly in harsh guitar riffage, that features some melodic vocals reminding of some old Testament. It's followed by 'Venom', which has pretty much similar building blocks. With 'Generalized Anxiety Disorder', the band enter more proggy metal fields, offering a lot of tempo changes and Loudblast ('Sublime Dementia' [1993] era) style guitar stuff. 'Casus Belli' has some later Death influences, again jumping through various phases, just like the previous song.

'Liquidators' is a fine late 1980s / early 1990s style mid-paced dark thrasher. 'Lonely Thoughts' is a dark instrumental with acoustic guitar playing and somewhat Alex Skolnick style lead guitar playing. Suitably, the following song after the instrumental, 'Dreading', is very Testament-ish. Hardcore elements return on 'From Hell'. 'Near Death Experience' ends the album with style, being another proggy piece with various turns and twists. So, the album contains three types of songs; pure thrash, crossover songs, and more proggy thrash/death. One important thing is, that Korrosiah have their own kind of sound and style, despite of all influences they have. The vocals are weakest thing about the band. They also are varying with all kinds of growls, harsh throaty styles and even some clean singing, but still quite average in every way.

Thumbs up for old-sounding, primitive production, which truly reminds of 1980s. Every instrument and vocals are still well audible, thanks to balanced mix. Even the cover artwork harks back to that era. Any kind 3D art or such wouldn't have suited for this, for sure.

Korrosiah's debut album is an interesting affair. It carries elderly spirit, but the band have managed to create their own kind of alloy of metal music. Definitely worth checking out, if you wish it was still 1980s...

Rating: 7+ (out of 10) ratings explained

Reviewed by Lane
02/27/2011 21:38