Metal Underground.com

Italy—who knew? While the Northern Euros are getting all the credit (and deservingly so) for pushing much of the world’s purest metal, it seems the South isn’t going to go unnoticed. Following the path of last year’s Disarmonia Mundi release, “Mind Tricks,” some of the same talent, sans vocalist Bjorn “Speed” Strid, have unleashed another Italian headbanger worthy of worldwide attention.

Don’t let the band name fool you, either. While their name conjures images of death vocals and blackened guitars, Slowmotion Apocalypse compares more favorably to The Haunted during the Marco Aro years, with a thrash vibe and coinciding vocals from Albi and guests (including ex-At the Gates’ Thomas Lindberg). Song structure, pacing, a lack of clean vocals, and even the track titles could easily fool the listener into thinking The Haunted, with Aro back at the helm, put out a new album under a new name.

The tracks, then, are as one would expect given the comparisons already made. Each track, from the opener (no intro needed, apparently) to the grand finale, is at least a competent metal song. The aforementioned Thomas Lindberg makes an appearance on “The Blessing,” and Disarmonia Mundi’s Claudio Ravanale is featured on “Daydream Addiction,” but they do little to shake things up. There aren’t many changes of pace from the thrashing metal, though “Burial” slows things down just a tad and adds a little Children of Bodom atmosphere, minus light-speed guitars. To close the deal, Slowmotion Apocalypse, following again in the footsteps of Disarmonia Mundi, has tacked on a cover of an all time metal song as dessert at the end of the album. In this case, it’s Iron Maiden’s “Be Quick or Be Dead.” This cover does what a cover should do, which is to take someone else’s song and make it one’s own. Here, Maiden’s clean vocals are replaced with a slightly tamed yelling voice, but the instrumentation remains mostly intact with a brutally modern update.

No doubt, Slowmotion Apocalypse is a one-trick pony of well-produced thrash metal. If you’re looking for diversity, look elsewhere. If you dig The Haunted, however, chances are you’ll also want to hunt down a copy of “Obsidian.”