| CD REVIEW Anoxia |
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Band : Anoxia This somewhat different Heavy Metal act comes from Odense and Syddanmark in Denmark, where it was originally founded in 1996. For reasons untold, the four of Lars (lead vocals & guitar) and Sören Frederiksen (drums),and Claus (guitar) and Allan Nielsen (bass) never got around recording anything until releasing their 2005 demo Kept In Sin, which got a warm reception by the media and resulted in a healthy amount of gig possibilities. The success of the demo reached its summit when the band got invited to participate in the April 2007 international music festival/ band contest Bilbao Rocks in North Spain. Actually the band almost missed playing the fest due to a sudden airline strike, but persevering they eventually landed in Bilbao 1 ½ hours prior to their concert…and blew the jury away. In fact, among the hundreds of bands participating the jury picked Anoxia for having a cool and different sound. Seeing their choice of musical hybrid confirmed, the band started writing new material in the same vein, and once they had 10 songs ready (one remake from the demo, namely “Flowers On My Grave”) they hired time at Jailhouse Studio to record/ mix the stuff with celebrated producer Tommy Hansen (check Helloween, Pretty Maids, Hatesphere, and oh-so-many more) and Simon Joegensen in May/ June 2009. Proud as they were of the new material, they immediately posted 4 songs off the album on their MySpace page, and started shopping the album around. They eventually found a partner in Denmark’s Target Distribution, who would release the album through their house label Mighty Music on February 1 of this year! Well, the history bit done…what’s so special about the sound of this band? To put it quite simply, the guys combine a Progressive Heavy Metal with Thrash drumming and Hard Rock melodies, throw in qiute a bit of tempo changes, and then speed things up to the limit of endurance (joke, that latter bit…but the truth is that Anoxia’s musical pace is generally on the high side) with guitars played in a somewhat harsh tone. On top, Lars has a rather melodic and clean voice, which he nevertheless uses with variety by cramming in the occasional scream and harsher passage…and he gets backings by one of the guys in a similar way. Let’s not forget the prominent way the bass is put in the forefront as well (it’s not especially distorted or anything, but simply always thére and in-your-face)! At this very moment, only the one song is posted at myspace.com/anoxiadk (which ain’t a lot to get acquainted with a band, but really you can expect the same sound from the rest of the album), but I guess the regular surfer will know how to find the videos by the band (like their appearance at the Bilbao Rocks festival). Nice stuff, and certainly not deservant of the negative treatment it got in Aardschok magazine (June ‘10 edition)! 90/100 Tony. |
