Review : HAVOK – “Burn”

Havok – Burn
released June 30, 2009 on Candlelight

Hailing from the mile-high city, this young band has set up base camp about one thousand miles from the Bay Area and the thrash it spawned. They’re set to impress on their debut album: nice chops, daunting leads, strong bass presence, and varied vocals somewhere between early Chuck Billy and Tom Araya.

Following the mellow intro, “The Root of Evil” has got all of those aforementioned positive qualities (with “Ivory Tower” meeting this bar later). By and large, the music progresses both logically and viscerally, and never tries to overextend itself in long jam sessions or pointless noodling. They gotta work on the lyrics (“Identity Theft”, “To Hell”) and find a permanent drummer (the guy on this album is actually already gone!), but their proficiency is obvious. This is one neo-thrash group whose sophomore effort I’m now anticipating.

FCC: 3, 12
Try *2*, 4, 6, 7, *8*
1 is an intro

01. Wreckquiem
02. The Root of Evil
03. Path To Nowhere
04. Morbid Symmetry
05. Identity Theft
06. The Disease
07. Scabs of Trust
08. Ivory Tower
09. To Hell
10. Category of The Dead
11. Melting The Mountain
12. Afterburner

~MetalMattLongo