Unsacred:"False Light"

This Virginia band explodes with an impressive burst of feral black metal. The vocals are a hateful of a rasp as anything you could ask for from the states. They are really forward in the mix rather than the more typical buried placement. The have a very constrained chaos to their attack makes their triumphant gallops stand out. It common place to be impressive by the sheer violence of this sort of music, so it's up to the band from this point on to prove they can not only maintain , but continue to write actual engaging songs.

There is almost a punk rock beat to "Idle" that is not as impressive as the beast they opened with. They lean heavily on blast beats and tremolo picking. Sticking to cookie cutter black metal approach that they defied on the first song. "Plague" finds the band allowing themselves to build even if it is just for the intro, then launch into the full throttle assault that is more metal than the previous song. They do pull out some impressive bounding, bookended by more straight forward sonic blasting. The half time section helps break things up even if ever so slightly, which is what they need more of,as this sort of up to 11 all the time numbs your ears to the heaviness.

They don't seem to plan to let up. Going from one version of in your face at warp speed to a more punk version of the same thing. The backing vocal overdubs, help keep this song sounding like the one s before it. They pay a little more attention to detail with this one, before throwing that out the window and going back fro second on your jugular. The rock n roll feel to "Void 11" is what this album needs to keep it from just racing by you in a foaming at the mouth craze. They can only restrain themselves for so long before launching into the punk rock like thrashing. I think Mutilation Rites does this sort of thing better, Unsacred just has more of a punk take on that style of american black metal.

The drums at the beginning of "Sun" are there to remind you this drummer is badass if you haven't noticed by this point. "Sun" does find a crushing sludge like groove. More of this would have been well place earlier in the album. This is angry and makes you believe, rather than throwing all emotion out the window with everything else the tornado of speed sweeps up around it. They close out the album with "Cage" that is another blur of rapid fire blasting in case you haven't gotten enough of that sort of thing by now. A minute in they give you a brief breathing to play something with melody and then go rabid again. They manage to find a better sense of sonics when they slow it down a hair, but getting them to do that is well maybe two songs out of this album. Though they are a tad one dimensional they work well in the dimension they dwell in. They album captures what they set out to do and has a raw and jagged sound without sound like they were recorded in their Grandmother's basement, with blow speakers. So despite the monochrome sonic setting, this album is accomplishes blending the punk anger with black metal's venom so I'll round it up to an 8.

5