In 2024, opening your album with a song about warheads falling from the sky is not only timely but casts you as the needed herald of this year’s coming apocalypse and Almost Dead proves themselves to be up for the job on the aptly titled, Destruction Is All We Know (Innerstrength Records).
While they mix thrash and hardcore influences, an important detail when you take into consideration the thrash bands whose names stood the test of time, are those that did so by writing songs that were not only memorable, but employed singers whose voices stood out and did not default to having the vocals a mere obligatory afterthought. Something that metal strayed from over the past decade, but Almost Dead don’t fall prey to.
The band is committed in the main to their rapid-fire attack, breaking from it to form a more Pantera-like groove on “Eight Eyes Black”. While this song might be one of their more nuanced moments of songwriting, after the opening track, their lyrics default a touch to the hardcore-leaning tough-guy talk and metal tropes.
EXCLUSIVE ALBUM STREAM: Almost Dead – “Destruction Is All We Know”
“Nightmare Coming” finds Tony Rolandelli proving his versatility and incorporating a wider variety of different screams, while “Within the Ashes” does find the band taking inspiration from melodic death metal in the manner the guitars form a melody, and I like the darker direction the song finds itself in at the end.
“Agent of Chaos” races through a more feral attack than the bulk of bands normally worshipping Pantera engage in, which might be due to these guys coming from more of a hardcore background. “Brutal Devotion’ is more deliberate and benefits greatly from being so as it plays out as one the most memorable tracks as the chorus hooks you in with purpose, and the last song “Where Sinners Cry”, blasts by in a thrashing fury.
All in, Destruction Is All We Know has plenty of strong moments, and if you were a metalhead in the nineties then Almost Dead do hit a special nostalgic chord for a unique era of metal that still holds a great deal of importance today. This can be measured by how a band like Pantera’s legacy proves its worth by packing venues larger than the ones they typically played at their peak.
With a combination of groove and hooks, Almost Dead proves that once again songwriting finesse will always prevail over the kind of in-your-face onslaught your average metal band boxes your ears with these days. Metalcore does not have to be a banned word when it’s blended with the fundamentals of classic hardcore and metal.
Buy the album here:
https://almostdead.bandcamp.com/album/almost-dead
8 / 10
WIL CIFER