Absinhtium
One For The Road

"One For The Road" is the second full-length album by the Turin-based band ABSINTHIUM, distributed by Punishment 18.
In recent years, the metal scene in northern Italy has become overcrowded with bands describing themselves as deathcore, moshcore, or similar, so I can only be pleasantly surprised to find a group that decided to play some good old heavy metal with a touch of thrash that reminded me primarily of Metallica during the "... And Justice For All" period.

The audio quality is really good—as are the choice of sounds, distortions, and arpeggios—and all the instruments find their space perfectly. You are faced with musicians with excellent compositional taste; after all, not everyone knows how to use the exact portion of technique necessary to make each song blend with the others without becoming predictable.

The only flaw I reserve to report is the solos—notable and well-played but sometimes tending to sound a bit mechanical—and the length of the individual tracks (almost all the tracks exceed 5 minutes, while the closing "Black Gown" reaches almost 6 and a half minutes... really excessive in my opinion, given the genre proposed).
Returning to the album, beyond the excellent instrumental performance, there is an excellent vocal performance by Alessandro both in the vocal arrangement lines and in the pronunciation. The rhythm section (Dario on bass and Tommaso on drums) does not miss a beat, and the band manages to surprise in an indirectly brilliant way; the track "Circular Saw" conveys the sensation of listening to two bands simultaneously because—despite fitting perfectly into the platter—it would not look out of place on a Disturbed album, demonstrating that ABSINTHIUM has the potential to move across different horizons while at the same time not losing sight of the original musical context. Other strengths of the album are certainly the opener "The Course Of Blood", "Mr. Nothing" and "Skull" which—in my opinion—besides being introduced by a beautiful arpeggio, best showcases Franco's various guitar skills.

Thus, I dare to say that the Piedmontese band represents just another qualitative example of the Italian underground scene... rather than spending 30/40 euros for the same "big band" seen and reviewed repeatedly, such musical realities should be supported more and more consistently. 
Thumbs up!!!