HAVOK - V review

HAVOK - V

Century Media Records




Some history to start you off with. HAVOK originally came out during the waning years of the Thrash Revival, circa 2009. They had good enough talent to get signed with Candlelight Records. By that point of the decade all the big labels now had a few new Thrash bands in their rosters to milk the trend. The Colorado act's debut full length Burn was a decent enough re-creation of the genre's past greats. I even got to see em once sometime after that.


But in all honesty the band suffered the same fate as most of the other Thrash Revival acts at that time. Having talent only goes so far especially when you're just repeating another era's sound. I couldn't knock em for producing something enjoyable in the short term. I still have their first two releases although I haven't listened to em until recently. 


After putting three albums out on Candlelight, the last one Unnatural Selection coming out in 2013. The band went on hiatus for a few years until 2017 when they re-emerged on Century Media Records with Conformicide. Musically this was definitely a step up as far the band getting more technical and adding some groove elements. 


The albums real claim to fame was in it's lyrical themes which to me came across on the Libertarian side of the political spectrum. Not that this was anything really new as far as the band's previous albums went. It was just that on Conformicide the lyrics conveyed messages which at the time really burned the faces of some knee-jerk libtards in the metal media. So called HAVOK a MEGADETH Jr. is not a slag at all.


With all of that said this new one caught me by surprise. Gone are most of the funky groove elements as well as the bassist, Nick Schendzielos, responsible for em on their last album. Their new one, Brandon Bruce, is a standout in his own right. How many other new era thrash acts have bass players standing out equally with the guitars? Yeah not many. 


Musically the band has taken what they did best on their first two albums and matured the sound and execution. David Sanchez's vocals seem far more vicious now. Reece Scruggs's lead work tends to be about quality then quantity. Yeah there's a lot of homage to the past on V. But come on, like that's gonna happen these days. All in all I think this is HAVOK's best album of their career.


https://www.centurymedia.com/

https://www.facebook.com/HavokOfficial