'Written in Blood' is the third full length manifestation of street-wise metal from Norwegian band Manifest. The band features personnel from such bands as Exeloume and Griffin.

Manifest mix metal, hardcore punk and rock. The metal side of the music is mainly thrash metal and groove metal. Basically, old school influences meet modern day mentality. It is never very technical. The hardcore element brings in more blunt aggression. The rocking attitude adds some looseness and groove, which nicely contrasts those more blunt angles and forms of the music. Mainly Manifest's music reminds me of Pro-Pain, but is somewhat thrashier. Also names like The Haunted, Gurd and Prong (e.g. during 'Irreversible') come to mind during the listening. At their best, Manifest manage to inject their gutsy songs with stoppable juggernaut drive. The first four songs are more aggressive lashes, with varying tempos from fast double kick drums antics to rockier tempos. 'Pitch Black Inside' is a darker slow song with good atmosphere, and suitable synthesizer work, and sounding like a mixture of Black Label Society and Pantera. Vocals and guitars song 'Letter from the Grave' is the second slow one on the album. However, some pieces after it are just repeating better bits of the album. For example, 'Lullaby (Bedtime for Bastards)' and 'Savage' are on the dull side, and cannot be saved even by the band's attitude.

The band definitely sound angry and pissed off, and can shift into a calmer state of mind when, even though seldom, needed. The vocals are varying throughout the album; Spitting grunts and growls, then somewhat cleaner vocals, but thankfully no screamo thing. Some of the cleaner ones remind of Machine Head's Rob Flynn. Generally, the vocalist's voice sounds like it was raped by ruthless boozing and smoking. The production job is clear, for sure, but also kind of dry. As a whole, this sounds a tad flat.

If you are searching for new crossover metal, you could do far worse than this. The music style isn't one of my favourite ones, so those enjoying more about this kind of stuff might find so much more here. Cons are clear: A bit poorish production and a couple of lamer songs. But when the band get on higher gear, they roll on like a bloody freight train!

Rating: 6½ (out of 10) ratings explained

Reviewed by Lane
02/13/2012 11:14