Artas – The Healing

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Napalm Records
Produced by Jacob Hansen

Formerly known as Staub & Schatten Artas, from Austria, won the battle of the bands style competition at Slovenia’s Metalcamp festival in 2007, which directly lead to their deal with Napalm Records and this, their debut album.

Various influences contribute to Artas’ sound, but they seem to do it on different tracks, thereby not really giving them an overall coherence. The two main ones, which rarely combine but do reoccur, are a modern extreme thrash sound with Max Cavalera style vocals similar, and a more standard modern metal sound, similar to the likes of Every Time I Die etc., occasionally drifting into a less appealing hardcore sound, mostly with the vocals.

Examples of each of these are interspersed. Openers Barbossa and Bastardo, which also have some classic thrash elements later on, exhibit the Cavalera sound, which doesn’t occur again until Fick Das Fett at track five. These are followed by a cover of Coolio‘s Gangster’s Paradise, which isn’t as ridiculous an idea as it first sounds.

Coolio’s rapping on that track was never the fastest, and the lyrics weren’t the stereotypical chart fodder either. In fact, for a rap song, it was reasonably melodic, particularly in the chorus. Coolio’s voice was also a bit rougher than would normally be expected from a rapper (the same reason Busta Rhymes and Ice T can cross over into heavy metal), so covering the song with a metal singer, even an extreme one, actually always had the potential to work. And work it does.

Then the title track, Blut and Rhågenfels share the modern metal sound, while Through Dark Gates goes down a similar route to Sepultura‘s faster material. Then The Butcher’s Guilt steps up as the album’s highlight. It mixes several different influences (and is the only track to really do so) into a massive, stomping metal anthem. Faster, thrashy sections, an almost-industrial beat in places and the same incredibly heavy guitar tone as the rest of the songs combine perfectly.

This slips without pause into the Soulfly-ish aggression of Kontrol, a huge groove on From Dirt We Will Rise, and straight-ahead thrash of I Am Your Judgement Day and A Song of Ice And Dire (although the death metal vocals of the later make it the albums weakest moment).

In the end the possible cohesion missing from not following the same styles on each track becomes irrelevant. Pure thrash aggression is the only cohesion they need, and although the delivery varies a bit, it’s still unmistakably Artas throughout. And it’s all so incredibly heavy even thrash fans will be blown away. Probably the most impressive debut of 2008.

“ Pure thrash aggression ”

Tracklist: Barbossa / Bastardo / Gangster’s Paradise / The Healing / Fick Das Fett / Rhågenfels / Through Dark Gates / Blut / The Butcher’s Guilt / Kontrol / From Dirt We Will Rise / I Am Your Judgement Day / A Song of Ice And Fire

Written by Andy Lye
More: 2008, Albums, Heavy Metal (Extreme Vocals), Artas