Dallas crossover thrash titans Power Trip has been making a name for themselves since the release of their 2008 demo tape. The band has toured nonstop, recently completing a tour with Expire and Xibalba and making appearances at festivals such as The Rumble and New England Metal and Hardcore Festival. Five years since its debut, the band has unleashed something that the blast doors just couldn’t contain: Mainfest Decimation. Recorded by War Hungry guitarist Arthur Rizk and Daniel Schmuck, and featuring art from Italy’s Paolo “Madman” Girardi, Manifest Decimation barges its way through your speakers and stomps a mud hole in your soul.
The band’s first full-length for Southern Lord Records, Manifest Decimation is eight tracks of nonstop circle-pitting thrash with some pretty heavy hardcore leanings at times, harkening classic thrash like Metallica and Nuclear Assault mixed with hardcore staples Cro-Mags and Leeway. Hell, even the production makes this album sound like you’d find it in a record store in 1985. The album starts off with the auditory maelstrom that is the title track, “Manifest Decimation”. Feedback and effects swirl together, creating a nerve-wracking preview of things to come. The song kicks in fast and frantic, with vocalist Riley Gale spitting angry and reverb-laden vocals. “Manifest Decimation” does just that: decimates anything in its path without mercy. “Heretic’s Fork” follows, serving as a perfect and thrashy second track for the album. Power Trip’s unrelenting attack does not let up in this song, and even incorporates a heavy breakdown in the latter half of the track.
“Conditioned To Death” starts out slow, offering listeners a little peace before being pummeled into submission once again. The song starts off with an intro heavily influenced by Metallica before offering forth more of Power Trip’s signature blend of crossover thrash and heavy hardcore. The song breaks for a savagely evil ending, evoking the band’s Big Four influences. “Murderer’s Row” continues the nightmare, this time offering a brutal mid-tempo attack coupled with a simple yet killer solo.
“Crossbreaker” kicks off the latter half of the album with a song that sounds straight out of the 80s and was specifically crafted for headbanging that leads to a broken neck. The track incorporates gang vocals over music that lands somewhere in Anthrax territory. “Drown” lands somewhere within that territory as well, with a slow and churning intro leading into the band’s trademark circle pit fury. The next to last track, the eponymous “Power Trip”, definitely shows the band’s crossover roots as it marches forth into the eye of the hurricane. The album’s closer, “The Hammer Of Doubt”, beings with a stressful and brooding guitar part coupled with a creepy sample then breaks right into the song without mercy. Clocking in at six and a half minutes, “The Hammer Of Doubt” is a great closer to Manifest Decimation, fading out into a textured atmosphere of synths.
If anyone ever questions the status of the crossover scene in 2013, kindly hand them a copy of this album and see if it doesn’t change their mind.
ya boi
May 10, 2013 at 9:53 am
TEXAS ON TOP 2013