No Remission’s new album, “Through Blackened Skies”, is an ambitious project that instantly transports my mind to the halcyon days of epicly written thrash metal albums. Yet these guys don’t just regurgitate the staple elements of 80′s metal, instead they throw in flourishes of 90′s grunge vocal lines, hardcore breakdown segments and a general sense of modern day music writing. The modern album that most comes to mind while listening to this great work would be Machinehead’s “The Blackening”.
This album weaves in and out as a cohesive narrative puling the listener through dynamic shifts of volume and emotion. No Remission effectively transitions between beautiful melodic guitar interludes (check out “Malevolence”), breakneck thrash riffage (ummm, pretty much every song, but my favorite is opener “Carbon Copy”) and modern hardcore stomp with a fluidity that is rarely seen in modern metal. The vocals perfectly compliment the musical shifts between a clear crisp screams and hauntingly sung vocal lines (especially check out the passage at the 2:12 mark of “Nine”) that show another rarity in metal; understandable lyrics! Oh, and I can’t forget all the fleet fretwork and bluesy solos peppered throughout that complete this heartiest of metal stews. While some of these elements may mean that some will see this band as not being truly brOOOOtal, I say who cares!
I consider it refreshing to hear a new band in the metal community producing something that you can pick up and appreciate off the bat. Listening to this album just made me smile as I thought back to the first time I listened to Metallica’s “Master of Puppets” or Megadeth’s “Countdown to Extinction”. For me No Remission’s “Trough Blackened Skies” is like the little nephew of those classic metal albums, completely in line with a heritage of metal we seem to have recently lost.
So, all I can say to No Remission is Thank You! And all I can say to all those people in and around NYC is make sure you get to The Studio at Webster Hall on Saturday, June 18th for No Remission’s NYC record release show. I guarantee you’re neck will be broken by show’s end.
