FIRESCORCHED

It's sad, but at the same time comforting, to be one of the few people who considered a day as a good one when they listened to a new album of a style as little explored as Technical/Progressive Thrash Metal; sad because I wish more people would appreciate the songwriting brilliance that bands like Sadist offer so that more bands would start to consider a career creating this kind of music, but heartwarming because I feel like a lucky individual to be able to enjoy this rare but enriching world from time to time with real expectations without fear that it feels like playing the new Assassin's Creed game giving me the impression of sitting down doing exactly the same thing as a year ago.

Sadist is a band that, from what I've listened to of their discography since their reunion in 2005, hadn't quite hit the nail on the head properly, always iterating and altering the nature of their sound in crucial ways without really finding a middle ground to start creating potential masterpieces (albeit never bringing poor quality material to light), however, it was apparent from the first time I heard the song "Finger Food" that this album was just what I had been waiting for, a powerful album that, in a very traditional way, is based on the roots of Thrash Metal that gave birth to the band, one that had been lost to a certain extent in previous releases, but which in turn, it manages to expand its possibilities by merging with the right progressive elements and a technical instrumental skill that would make bands like Obscura blush. In a way, this album feels like the true evolution of what Sadist and this style of music was always meant to be, and it seems that was the intention all along.

"Firescorched can be described as Sadist 2.0".

TOMMY TALAMANCA GUITARIST AND KEYBOARDIST OF SADIST.

And I must say that it is interesting that Tommy refers to the album in this way because, practically, every element that composes it reflects that feeling, the present instrumental variation is a perfect example of it, always keeping in front the progressiveness of the instrumental composition. as a standard (like on "Fleshbound"), consisting of complex and playful arrangements by the guitar (like on "Fleshbound" and "Accabadora") that creates the main melody of the songs without leaving the other instruments to the side. On the other hand, which are mainly responsible for enriching the minute by minute of each song, the synthesizer created surprising but interesting circumstances with its support arrangements and disparate elements integrated as part of the atmosphere (like on "Finger Food" and "Three Mothers and the Old Devil Father"), the bass, led by the infallible Jeroen Paul Thesseling, and the way in which it unfolds, consolidating itself as the main focus at concrete and specific moments where it is responsible for enriching the instrumental composition, avoiding moments of monotony caused by familiarity (like on "Burial of a Clown"), always showing up when one does not expect it, thus creating unforgettable moments in each reproduction, the voice, powerful and heartbreaking on the part of Trevor Nadir, who gives his touch of rage and restlessness to the music at throughout the entire experience (like on "Finger Food"), giving rise to a terrifying but enjoyable essence, and let''s not forget the complex arrangements that drummer Romain Goulon brings to the table, becoming the main pillar of support for the sound without forgetting that the complex handling of drums and cymbals is capable of keeping anyone on the edge of their seat (like on "Trauma (Impaired Mind Functionality)").

It is clear that, instrumentally speaking, this album is simply magnificent, but, as is often the case in albums as ambitious as this one, there is always more than one expects, as is the case with the integration of atmospheric elements that give it his raw but enriching touch to the experience, from small instrumental winks (as is the case in the first verses of "Burial of a Clown" and the bridges of "Aggression/Regression"), to unexpected decisions by the structure of the songs. songs and even the implementation of choirs and female voices (like on "Finger Food"), of whom by the way I could never find her/their name(s) anywhere, each element that makes up the atmosphere in this album feels down to the millimeter and is the best example, not only of how Sadist has implemented these recurring elements in their music, but also how this type of implementation should be handled in albums of the Thrash Metal subgenre, the album "Psychowarriors of Jupiter" by the Spanish band Harmpit being another example of this. All this without mentioning how the composers had the vision to evolve the instrumental composition by combining certain atmospheric elements creating transitions in the middle of the verses to increase the amount of variation present in the album expanding the possibilities to levels not expected in the first instance, but always being able to find new and interesting details that you had not noticed before in subsequent exhibitions (like on "Firescorched").

But I would be lying if I said that there are not certain detriments that limit the experience from being something unparalleled without ceasing to be essential, as is the case of the lack of a qualitative accompaniment in the moments of guitar solos in certain songs (like on "Finger Food" and "Accabadora"), creating a kind of eye inside the storm, instrumentally speaking, but that fails to compensate for this absence with significant elements, neither instrumental nor atmospheric, thus creating moments that contrast negatively, although the transitions of these moments to the rest of the songs to be good or even brilliant.

And it's especially a problem when there are circumstances on the album in which there are guitar solos (like on "Aggression/Regression") or quiet moments (like on "Three Mothers and the Old Devil Father", "Fleshbound" and " Accabadora") that accomplish similar objectives and are constructed in admirable ways, which makes me conflicted about what they really expected the listener to experience in the poorer moments compared to the rest of the album.

A feeling that is more latent especially in the song "Loa", which is responsible for transitioning the first part of the album with the second, but even being the best example of instrumental variation and atmospheric implementation of the entire album, it is true that it feels as if a song from some Frost* album has been lost and ended up on the lines of a Thrash Metal album thus creating a dissonance in the experience, and of course, a better handling of transitions between this song and its neighbors as well as redoing some of the songwriting to better fit the feel of both songs would alleviate the problem, but it''s not the way it's presented in this experience and it would definitely be better without it, especially when (this being a strongly subjective feeling compared to anything else I've said before) the second half of the album isn't as much fun to listen to as the first even though it's instrumentally more complex and is the architect of some of the most essential moments of the album.

However, despite all of the above, Sadist's Firescorched is a revolution for the style in which it is presented without losing what made it interesting in the first place, and this is a statement that I verified at a time when I clicked play on the Watchtower "Control and Resistance" album (which I was listening to as a reference for writing this review) by mistake and felt like I was listening to a weird follow-up to this new Sadist installment, which led me to think two things, that it is an album so faithful to the principle that the original creators of this style outlined, but at the same time, reinforces why I consider this album as the true evolution of it, because although it clearly feels like a fresh album from beginning to end, it's also one that is not afraid to recapture the Thrash Metal core that has always been the identity of the band since its inception.

Rating: 4.5/5

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