SSS – Problems To The Answer

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English based crossover thrashers SSS (Short Sharp Shock) return for their third album in only a few years. The band are commonly referred to as crossover thrash, but in all fairness the band aren’t all that thrash at all. They don’t really utilize thrash riffing or lead, so whilst crossover might be the best genre fit, in reality this is more a hardcore punk band with influences from grindcore, thrash and even progressive. The main difficulty with Problem To The Answer is its staggering length – at 25 tracks long, it can be a hard album to take in all at once. Certainly quite a lot of those tracks are swift blasts of punk-like metal, but even still it feels a bit long-winded. The album becomes overburdened by too many similar tracks – where on closer inspection SSS have quite a substantial amount of fresh ideas littered throughout the album. Whilst the band aren’t particularly thrash, they do get more traditional crossover thrash on Trapped Inside Two States of Mind. Barney Greenway (Napalm Death) joins the band on The Kill Floor and Here Comes The Neighbourhood to great effect, and there’s even some post-hardcore instrumental noodling on Future Primitive and closing track Strangenotes (which strangely ventures into progressive/psychedelic territory). There’s plenty of good material to make this an album worthy of interest, though it certainly could have done with some trimming.

Written by James Donovan
More: 2011, Albums, Hardcore/Metalcore, Quick.Play Reviews, Thrash Metal, SSS