Lynchmada-To The Earth

Truth Inc. Records
2011






Lynchmada was an outfit I was not too familiar with when their CD arrived in my mail. As I was on my way out at the time I just slid the disc into my car's CD player, hit play, turned the volume up and was greeted by this unearthly black/doom sound by way of "What Fresh Hell Is This?". Not too surprisingly I had a blank look on my face as I thought to myself "Andy, I thought the promo sheet said Lynchmada would appeal to listeners who were into bands like Deftones, Karnivool, Meshuggah and Chimaira?". Well, as I was just about to answer myself (since the only time I can ever find someone to agree with me is when I talk to myself) the rest of "To The Earth" kicked in and it certainly was not black metal or doom. Rather what it was was this incredible hybrid of thrash and almost deathcore. This Gold Coast, Queensland based band have a fresh sound that pulls from British metal, Scandinavian death metal, technical thrash, metalcore and interestingly enough progressive rock. Alright, maybe it isn't all that new and fresh as seemingly every new "modern metal" band is pulling bits and pieces of different genres out of thin air and pasting them together. What makes these gentlemen different though from the bulk of other modern metal bands doing the same thing is that here it sounds cool. Crushing and insane riffs, blasting drum beats, bulldozer like bass lines and both clean and rough vocals all swirl around creating an album that while technically not new or inventive is at least fun to rage out to. Sometimes that is all you need out of a metal act anyway right? Does a new band have to be new style and sound wise or can they just be a rage in a cage blast of heavy metal fury? For me sometimes it matters little if the sound is completely new as long as it is down right gritty and insane. With Lynchmada the sound is new (in that not every modern metal act out there these days is doing it right) and they destroy bodies in the pit at the same time. It is a win-win situation!