I feel like Greece is treating me really good. That country keeps spawning new awesome bands and the amount of them seems unending! Fatal Mutiny is the latest addition to my library of Greek metal bands, and they play technical thrash metal. They have been active since 2010 and now they have released their debut album, Existence in Extinction which will be put under the scope.
I'm not quite sure how to start off though because I just want to get it out immediately that I think this is a really strong and impressive debut album. Allow me to specify. The production is really, really fucking good, it's heavy and thrashy. The drums sound outright amazing and they got a fierce punch that last through the entire album. Everything is clear and audible, and that goes for the bass as well! Besides the sound of the drums, I can't get enough of the production sound of the solos on this album. They sound like the band went back to the 80's and took back the sound with them and I love the 80's sound. The regular guitar tone is thrash no doubt and the overall sound of the album is modern and well produced, then mixed with those solos. It sounds amazing.
There's a good amount of interesting riffs that supports the technical element of this album quite good, and the mix between all out thrash and technical parts are well varied. And some songs even have jazz inspiration though while thinking what it really reminded me of, I couldn't help think about Atheist. Not a bad thing at all. The vocals are hoarse and angry so don't expect a Toxik clone as Fatal Mutiny feels like they're up in your face most of the time. On two occasions the vocals get varied, one is good and the other is less good. On the track Closing In... Time is Gone we're treated with a deeper vocal almost reaching growling. I really liked that when it comes to variety, because I think the standard vocal fits the music to a certain point. Throughout the album it can be a bit long-drawn to listen to those hoarse vocals and it could probably bother a fair amount of people. Anyway, the other vocal variation is on Ligeia where there is small sections where the vocals almost go harmonic, trying to press in some proper singing, and that did not work for me. I would like to stick to Ligeia for a second as it's the longest song reaching almost 9 minutes. When I saw the length I was expecting the fellas to go progressive on me, which would have been fine but they didn't. Instead it breaks into a solo focused song and then returns to vocals in the end and they actually nail it, and here's where the solo production sound really shines!
Fatal Mutiny achieve what a lot of bands fail to. They set themselves apart from the rest. Even though their logo might not implicate just that, their music sure as hell does. I hope it's a sign of the times that the "pizza, beer & mosh"-cliché thrash is dying out. Thrash is my favourite sub genre, but enough is enough. But looking at the other side of the coin, where does Existence in Extinction fail? The vocals as I mentioned earlier might be a factor for a lot people and it can be for me as well. It lacks the interesting or catchy songs if you want to call them that, the songs stays on your mind after you've listened to the album. There's not a song like Spontaneous, Heart Attack or World Circus on here. It's probably a bit unfair to just drag in Toxik like that but it is well meant because I want this record to succeed as much as possible.
What does all this rambling leads us to? A 42 minute long album that is very impressive from a young Greek band that I'm eagerly going to follow in the future. With highlighting moments like Bloodlust, Existence in Extinction and Ligeia it's going to be exciting to see what the future holds for this band. If you're into any kind of thrash I would definitely recommend this album to you, and if you've been longing for something with technical elements then you should rush out to get this album!
Head over and support the boys at their Facebook and please yourself with their music at Soundcloud.
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