Black Breath-Sentenced To Life

I honestly can't understand the connection between the pathetically crafted album art and the album title, but as long as the music is good, I couldn't care less. Black Breath are nothing like like what you've heard before this year. Well, technically they are, but when bits and fragmants of differentiating sounds get sewn together in an orgy of malevolant intesity. ''Sentenced To Life'' subsumes such a vast abundance of musical styles that at first, it wouldn't be a shock if one wouldn't be able to classify this. Fortunately, I was warned before I listened to the album, so the riffs and complication of variation didn't come as a complete surprise. If we are to classy them then the best way would be to call them death/thrash/crossover/punk, which just isn't easy to spell out.

The riffs come in a superb abundance, from clusters of death/thrash insanity, to straightforward death metal tremolos that grind you up, to crushing crossover riffs, all presented to the listener with an intense punk attitude in the background. I just love how the riffs teem and overflow with dense energy, ready to be exposed with a sudden impact of brutality. The music just never bores you, with such variety and little nuances. The songs are all kept at a short length and thus have been abridgened in order to maintain the same level of dynamics through the whole album. And I have to say, the lack of lenght has indeed increased the rate of effectiveness and freshness since the album stops at thirty-two minutes. Some tracks may slightly stray from the pervasive path of pure, crushing and plain assault of riffage. ''Endless Corpse'' is a different tune, dealing more doom than say punk or even death, with its stomping mid-pave moments, brooding melodies and only handful amount of energy. Most tracks go with a steady thrash influence lingering at the back for the most part, and the crushing energy of thrash metal only empasizes the raw power of the album. Luckily death, thrash, punk  and crossover are the only styles prevalent on this album, or else we would had a real hard time trying to comprehend things, getting hit with a different weapon everytime we would turn to understand what had struck us previously.

The vocals are the key to the maintaining the energy here. I can't quite relate the vocalist to any of the singers I know, but he sounds like a frantic death/thrasher with a lot of punk attitude and furious barking most of the time, like the riffs. ''Sentenced To Life'' would not have been the same relentlessly crushing and crazed monster if it weren't for the vocals, guiding the riffs furiously.I come to cunclusion that Black Breath have indeed created something that's different even though, the originality can only boast the quality until so much. Massive Assault, probably followed a similar path to Black Breath, only leaning more on the death side and thus pushing the thrash influence aside. Either way, Black Breath's sophomore is for fans of frantic, frenzied death/thrash that also rots of punk and hardcore to provide that amazing attitude and energy. And the album is probably another good example of the ''Music doesen't have to depend on the artwork'' formula.

Highlights:
Doomed
Home Of The Grave
Mother Abyss

Rating: 89%