Band: Sideblast
Title: Cocoon
Label: Cyclone Empire
Distribution: Sure Shot Worx
Release date: 28/01/2011
Review: CD

French outfit Sideblast were formed in 2004. In 2008 I had the honour to listen to (and review) the band’s debut, Flight Of A Moth, which was recorded with Tommy Hansen. And I couldn’t but express my appreciation and surprise. Flight Of A Moth was a killer-release, one of the most intense and brutal yet ingeniously constructed (debut) albums in Metal’s history! In mean time, the band entered the stage more than once, playing along with Dagoba, Napalm Death or Neaera, and last year they did perform on Summer Breeze Open Air as well alongside bands as Cannibal Corpse, Suffocation or The Black Dahlia Murder.

This second studio recording was mixed and mastered at one of Poland’s strongest and most influential studios, Hertz Studio, with the Wieslawsci brothers (Deivos, Behemoth, Dissenter, Crionics, Vader, Decapitated and many others). The result is an Armageddon-loving ‘death machine’, less chaotic than the debut, yet as apocalyptic and devastating. The debut used to be somewhat nervous; this one is less stressed, yet at least as extremely pyroclastic. That’s a positive evolution, making this album less difficult to undergo. The quartet creates a symbiosis of extreme genres: technical Death Metal, Cyber-Death, Black and Thrash Metal, Grind, Sludge, Groove, Deathcore, Industrial, Psycho-Grind etc. All these elements get combined in each single track, with the addition of industrial, symphonic, atmospheric and noisy injections. The tempo mainly balances between fast and blasting; however, the band isn’t afraid to experiment with slow passages as well. All songs are so diverse, filled with tons of breaks, hooks and tempo-changes. Sometimes it sounds as autumnal as a Norwegian Black band (Lunaris, Emperor), then it is psychotically weird (Strapping Young Lad, Gojira), modern (Slipknot, Kruger) versus not so modern (Behemoth, Vader), grindingly intense (Nasum, Exhumed), nightly-gothified horrific (Tartaros, Cradle Of Filth), grungy-grumpy (early Faith No More [several keyboard lines remind me, by the way, to albums as Introduce Yourself and The Real Thing], Carnival In Coal), cyber-kinetic (Ephel Duath, Scorngrain, Zyklon), fingerly-technical (Deicide, Vital Remains) etc etc etc.

Unique! And even though this might not be your kind of music, you cannot deny the superior craftsmanship and splendid song writing, can you?!

90/100

Ivan Tibos.