Havok – Time is Up
Release: 2010Mar29 (US)
Label: Candlelight
Rating: 4/5
Havok are one of the legion sprung up in the past few years who play a fierce new breed of thrash. This area of the music world can get incestuous, and there are scores of bastard imitators out there—some just don’t go far enough, others miss completely. But this Colorado quartet just keeps getting better, and their second full length is anything but sophomoric.
“In this world of efficiency, there’s no room for mediocrity” shouts frontman David Sanchez, and might I say: fuckin’a, sir. One of the things we talked about when he called in live on the ‘Mind Over Metal’ broadcast were all the nitpickers out there who ripped on Burn. While even I agree it wasn’t perfect, many missed the forest for the trees. There were a couple of tracks in particular which were written by Sanchez when he was 16, so you need to forgive a little. Want an example of how far they’ve come? “D.O.A.” is all about the horrors of drunk driving, set to their most vicious tempo yet, with feral screams I never knew lived in this guy’s lungs (“Out of My Way” gets pretty raw, too). Similarly advanced, “Killing Tendencies” is not some dunderheaded story about mass murder, but rather a person’s predisposition to stultify their own life. There is clear maturation on all fronts; even the artwork has evolved from crude sketches (Pwn ‘em All) to more intricate designs (Burn) and now into ever greater depths with rich subtlety. They still kept the skulls, though, and I’m totally down with that.
But the great thing about the most important aspect of Havok—the relentless thrashing assault—is much more focused this time around. There has been a revolving chair behind the drums for a while, now occupied by Pete Webber, and Reece Scruggs is the new finger-licking lead axe. Both add needed stability to the volatile young group. Speaking of stability, the strong showing from bassist/backing vocalist/longtime member Jessie de los Santos is superb. He fleshes out “The Cleric” well, but that tune exemplifies how they can sometimes squeeze too much into one song (and I almost hear Pantera‘s “Live in a Hole” …don’t you?). At least they chose to pare down the overall album length, including nixing an intro (almost always welcome to my ears).
It’s never too late: get behind Havok, now. I’m not going to make any predictions or set any parameters for their success, because I’m not clairvoyant—I just make the best educated guesses based on the information before me. And I see a band that plays their guts out, improves their game, and has low tolerance for bullshit. Time is Up feels like the start of their true stride.
FCC: 1, 7, 9, 10
Try: 2, 3, 4, 6
01. Prepare for Attack
02. Fatal Intervention
03. No Amnesty
04. D.O.A.
05. Covering Fire
06. Killing Tendencies
07. Scumbag in Disguise
08. The Cleric
09. Out of My Way
10. Time Is Up
~MetalMattLongo
Facebook
LinkedIn
Last
Twitter
RSS
Email
Youtube
