| CD REVIEW Element |
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Band : Element Oh my...did you know there's actually 4 bands operating under this name? Well, perhaps just 3, because the current status of the Gloucester (Ontario) based Canadian Thrash Metal act is unknown (the only thing known for sure is that they were founded in 1996 and have a 2-disc self-titled CD to their name). Then there's the Polish Death/ Black Metal act (who've been around since 2000, released a threesome of demos, a 2002 split CD with Ave on Apocalypse Productions, and two full-lengths - the latter of which, Cybernetic Human, was released in 2007 on the NeoDeathlabel), and there's also a Technical Brutal Death Metal band (founded in 2004, they've released a 2004 EP, and the 2007 and late 2010 full-lengths Aeons Past and The Energy on the Brutal Bands label) from California. But our guys are of course the Wigan, North-West England (some 25 km West from the center of Manchester) based Thrashing lads. Founded in 2005 or so...there's some controversy about when exactly the band was formed : Encyclopaedia Metallum, aka (www.) metal-archives.com) puts it down to 2005, at the label's website you'll find an announcement about the label signing the band, stating the band began life in 2007, and the info sheet we got along with our promo copy of the album puts it at “late 2006”, and so does the story posted at the band's MySpace page (so we can assume that's the correct version)...at any rate, before the year 2006 was over singer/ rhythm guitarist Adam Calderbank, lead guitarist Andy 'Chow' Higham, the band's first bassist (Alex Burnell came in during Summer 2007), and drummer Rob Urquhart already presented their debut 5-track EP Just Desires. The quartet subsequently did their debut gig in February 2007, and they have since taken any chance to play anywhere in the UK. Thus, they occasionally got to support some of the bigger names in Metal such as Diamond Head, Evile, Speed Theory, Panic Cell, RSJ, Furyon, The Inbreds, Solitary, Strain, and I-Remain. Meanwhile, they released a new 7-track demo (featuring re-recorded versions of 3 songs off the debut EP, and an outro) entitled Bleed On My Own in 2007, and self-released their 8-track full-length debut (again using 4 older songs, the rest was however previously unrecorded) Under the Influence on April 30 of 2008 (which they'd recorded in February at Birmingham's Hellfire Studios with producer Ajeet Gill). The 1000 copies the band had made sold like sweetbread, having been made available physically at several independent record stores in the UK, Japan, and USA, as well as digitally via iTunes, Napster, and Amazon. Critics were generally positive, and this inspired the quartet to write a new batch of songs. It's while they were recording those (Spring/ Summer 2010) at Wigan's Urban Sound Studios, that they got an invitation to play at the prestigious Haigh Fest, where over 10,000 fans went nuts over the band's show. Returning to the studio to give the album its finishing touches, the band had originally planned to release the album, after the mastering was done, in September...but perhaps that was too optimistic an assessment. The thing is, I'm not sure what happened next, because the info's missing, but somehow the band came in contact with the people at Casket Music/ Copro Records...and so now the guys finally have their “official debut” album out, distributed globally! Overall, Element's thrash Metal is a grinding one, played at relatively low pace for the genre, the lead guitar occasionally going into a sustain mode to hang on to a particularly nice note. Still, there IS a degree of progressive runs to be discerned here. Obviously, a calmer pace also invites for some calmer passages and these elements in Element's music make everything as delectable as the outcome happens to be. For a real treat, check the 6 new songs (in effect the first 6 on the 9-track album) the band posted at (www.) myspace.com/elementsound. There's also a video with live samples and two more audio files of songs off the first album. As you'll hear from the available material, these Brits have succeeded in putting their own stamp on the Thrash Metal genre, and that alone merits a double “thumbs up”! 92/100 Tony. |
