Psycroptic – The Inherited Repression

site | label | buy

Psycroptic’s fifth album, and second for powerhouse label Nuclear Blast, sees the Tasmanians move a little further into the more melodic territory of technical thrash. Still with a strong sense of aggression, The Inherited Repression nonetheless is a relatively approachable record for those not keen on typical death metal. Technicality is, unsurprisingly, the key attraction with the album as it has been in the past. Extremely fast, sometimes impossibly fast guitar riffs dominate and pretty much make themselves the signature feature of the record. If you can listen to some of the guitar lines without feeling your hands wanting to imitate the parts yourself, you are obviously not listening hard enough. Certainly everything else is highly technical as well, and for the most part the songs themselves have enough energy and groove to give the album a solid foundation. The album’s shortcoming is that it sometimes feels like it only has the one idea – where recent records from technical thrashers Revocation and upcoming death metallers Obscura have shown varied ideas as well as a high level of skill, The Inherited Repression seems to have one general idea and then just goes with it. That does give the album an overall consistency, with little in the way of filler songs – it does sometimes feel like a little one dimensional, though. Still, that’s quite a dimension to have, and The Inherited Repression overall is a fast, energetic and highly skillful recording.

Written by James Donovan
More: 2012, Albums, Death Metal, Quick.Play Reviews, Psycroptic