Exarsis
The Brutal State

The Brutal State is the second album from Greek thrashers Exarsis, an album with an interesting looking album cover. They are said to have taken some inspiration from the Bay Area thrash metal which is a warning light to me considering that the Bay Area stuff is something we already have seen too much of and not much of that stuff that comes now is anything to have, but of course there is nothing specifically mentioned about a particular subgenre of the thrash subgenre so lets reserve judgement for later. I noticed a pair positive reviews for this album on the web so it might be something these guys do right.

Their music is uptempo thrash metal with a whole lot of energy, the singer is one of those high pitched yellers who sings with lots of conviction. The production is impressive and overall it feels like a high quality product, one that has taken its inspiration from a wide range of thrash metal areas. I would say thought that it feels as it is mainly geared towards the one who is already sold on the thrash metal genre and not so much towards anyone else. I would also say that the album feels very focused on its thing and it is short and to the point which can always be seen as a positive.

Overall I think that my view on this album is a positive one, it is well made and all the songs are of good quality and the lyrical side of things is quite good and amusing. There is a bit of a but however, and that is that this album is too much geared to a bitten thrash metal audience rather than a metal audience overall. The music feels like you’ve heard it before and to me it feels a bit like they are playing the nostalgia card a bit much, but of course they do what they do well so it is really hard to blame them too much but at times when listening to this album I feel a bit like I want to hear something more of them and something more fresh. Even if this is a great album for the fans of the genre it still feels a bit there’s nothing new under the sun, not as exciting as I would have liked it to be.

This brutal state feels like something for the initiated, and they will most likely find this album quite brilliant. The risk is however to alienate the rest of the metal fans who might find this album a bit uninteresting as it sounds more or less like anything from the thrash metal genre. In the end though I think that we can conclude that Exarsis has made a good second album and one that you really should not miss if you are a fan of the thrash metal genre. A quite excellent thrash metal album that might not be as appealing for the rest of us.

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