Writing two Suicide Watch reviews on the same day is a challenge for me. Band is pretending to play crossover thrash (according to all their statements), but in fact we’ve got medium (in the best scenario) level thrash based on ripping of classic bands.
But to be honest, The Alienation Zone is a step forward, now they’re stealing bands from other bands (on the “The Culling Of Humanity” the one and only inspiration was Municipal Waste). Band added some death metal elements- which are actually really annoying, especially crappy growls (like in “A Good Day To Live (A Better to die)”.. But it doesn’t change anything- it’s still a boring modern thrash album without any soul. Let’s put all things straight- I’m fan of modern thrash metal, I think that there are a lot of amazing new bands. Just not this one. Suicide Watch have all elements, that nowadays thrashers shouldn’t have- ripping off, lack of “devil” in the sound, lack of innovation or at least own style. Still it’s only A BIT better than previous album, but I don’t think that there will ever be something interesting from them. Even guest vocals from Acid Reign’s H doesn’t save anything. The last song on this album is Metallica’s cover (“Motorbreath”, which is far from original version. Simon Godwin, guitarist who sings this one shouldn’t be allowed to see microphone in his life. Ugh...
One more thing to the end- putting BIG statement on album “UK Brutal Thrash kings” isn’t a good idea for a bad band. Onslaught? Cerebra Fix ? Sabbat? I think that UK got much more intersting things. But except for this one, album cover is really nice, it’s probably the best thing we can find here.
Wojciech Michalak