Seventh Section - War Machine (2008) - Blackened thrash and death with the right mixture - 87% (17/09/11)

I remember that I got in touch with the band Seventh Section for the first time almost five years ago when they had a completely different line-up and played some kind of melodic black metal music with a singer that just tried too hard to be a copy of Dani Filth. I didn't expect much from this band to come but this little record almost blew me away by surprise.

In only a few years, many things changed and the band delivers energizing thrash metal with some death and black metal sounds on this record. This album makes me overall more think of Acrassicauda or Anthrax than of Amon Amarth or Cradle Of Filth. In fact, the band varies in a very heterogeneous but logical way in between the three styles and guarantees a lot of variety and upper level entertainment. The combination of heavy riffs, angry vocals and a couple of melodic guitar chords is just perfect to me.

Even though this is a low budget record, the band just found the right mixture between enough professionalism to take them serious, a great energizing live feeling of the songs and the rebellious and authentic garage attitude. Some people told me that this band is an amazing live band but that this record was a rather weaker one but I seriously can't find any big flaws on this great output.

Let's take a little look at each one of the five tracks from this record. We have some harder and faster stuff with some catchy melodic chords like the heavy opener "War Machine" on here. The next one is a mid tempo blackened thrash banger called "Prospero's Last Wish". "Sublimate" sounds more aggressive but has some intriguing Bay Area thrash riffs and a couple of interesting breaks that make this track maybe the technically best executed banger on this short and sweet gem of a record. "Depopulate" has some more melodic and maybe groovy riffs but is of the same quality as the previous track. I only dislike the unnecessary fast black metal passages that interrupt the great flow and the dark atmosphere of this mid tempo grower from time to time. The slow breaks are much more intriguing on here but the song is overall not so epic and maybe one and a half or two minutes too long. The closing "The Utopian" sounds even more epic with some different and intriguing vocal performances and surprises with some catchy and almost playful jazz bass guitar riffs from time to time and doesn't only focus on the solid guitar work and the energizing vocals. This last track is the kind of song the band should always keep on playing live and it is also easily my favourite song on the record as the band kept the very best for the end.

This record easily convinced me to give this band a second chance as they deliver a high quality product with five great blackened trash or melodic death metal tracks of the grandest kind. I heard that the band was on hold but got reanimated a few months ago and I hope that those talented guys decide to carry on and produce a new output in the near future. If you can get your hands on a copy of this EP, don't hesitate supporting this young band and get this dynamic and diversified album. It's sure that the band could still improve its skills and create a unique sound trademark for them, but this beginning is more than humble and in the end very well done as there is no real filler but only killers on this album. There really is a lot of promising talent in here and I hope that those guys will carry on this time.