MECHANISM

Inspired Horrific is the debut full-length studio album by Canadian death/ thrash metal act Mechanism. Mechanism is a completely new find for me and I was only made aware of the band´s existence because I read that Gene Hoglan ( Dark Angel, Death, Strapping Young Lad, Fear Factory...etc) plays the drums on Inspired Horrific. So I guess sometimes it does pay off to have a known face/ name in the lineup. The album is a self-released affair.

The music on Inspired Horrific is a modern kind of death/ thrash in the vein of Fear Factory and especially Strapping Young Lad. The vocals are a bit more on the growling side than the vocals in the latter band. There is plenty of variation when it comes to the vocals though and you´ll hear lots of clean sung parts too in the music. The songs are technically well played, the production is top notch and overall this is just a high quality product. If Mechanism had lured Devin Townsend to contribute on vocals instead of Chris Valago, you could have mistaken Inspired Horrific for a Strapping Young Lad album ( around SYL (2003) that´s how high the quality is. When that is said, the melodies are not quite as strong or memorable as most of the output of Strapping Young Lad. Now I know how much a band like Mechanism probably hate to read a review like this where their music is compared this much to another band but when the similarities are this obvious I would be wrong to neglect that in my review. A 3.5 star rating is deserved. This one is close to a 4 though.