Ground Control
Insanity

Verona's thrash bay area?

No, I haven’t gone mad all of a sudden, although I swear I'm close, but given the ever-increasing number of young bands coming from the Venetian city, which are now more and more fierce and potentially competitive from every point of view, one could easily draw a comparison, always with the proper and due distances, of course, between the splendid city of love and the much-celebrated music scene of Frisco a few decades ago, and the most tangible proof of what has been admitted before is naturally the advent of the newcomers Ground Control who, with their debut "Insanity", are undoubtedly ready to win the sympathy and esteem of those who are passionate about certain US-style sounds.

To tell the truth, the four boys are not exactly novices called to the moment of truth, having formed in the distant 1996 thanks to the chemistry between the appreciated singer of Arthemis Alessio Garavello, here also dealing with the six strings, and the guitar player Fabio Cavallaro, primarily as a cover band of old classics of the eighties thrash scene, gradually modifying their status to a full-fledged metal band over the years, with substantial changes within the line-up itself of the Veronese formation, which led them to the release of a first demo last year, and the full-length album which is the subject of our review this year.

With a versatile and effective rhythm section composed of Giovanni Raddi on bass and Fabio Perini on drums, Ground Control, as they should, become the architects of a superb discographic performance which, without betraying their roots always firmly anchored within a typically American musical movement, act as spokesmen of a rocky yet energetic techno thrash metal proposed in a manner I would dare to say almost impeccable, characterized by cleanliness of execution and technique, seasoned with a nervous and incessant riffing, partly characterized by those lightning stop and goes typical of the modus vivendi of sacred monsters of the caliber of early Annihilator, Megadeth, Testament, features to which the four naturally add a compositional creativity that is nonetheless part of their artistic baggage that helps, if nothing else, to make an album that is almost exemplary more captivating!!!!

Recorded masterfully at Remaster Studios in Vicenza under the supervision of the duo Nick Savio/Tony Fontò, mastered by maestro Karl Groom (Treshold) in Albion land, "Insanity," released by the newly born Punishment 18 Records of Cossato (!!!), could only be a small masterpiece of the genre examined by our people, composing a series of excellent compositions, ten to be exact, where the technique and guitar prowess of the Garavello/Cavallaro duo, always sneaks within a songwriting made almost perfect by the power/melody combination, venturing into the construction of ambitious and colorful sound architectures always of outstanding compositional quality, as in the case of the explosive initial pair "Days of Justice/Insanity (In my mind)" songs in which they showcase truly enviable skills made of harmonic scales and powerful and imaginative rhythms typically thrash metal, or the typically Megadeth-ian echo, complete with exotic riffing, of "Vortex of violence" first and "Free your soul" then, which seem almost as if they were taken from that "Rest in Peace," which often comes to mind during the listening of this album, showing comfort both in the more classically speed parts and in the more deliberately melodic instances such as in the splendid "Alone" characterized by a sublime performance by the good Alessio Garavello, certainly one of the best in his field, and beyond. Quite different in approach are the more accessible and catchy "Oriental sorrow" perhaps the most ordinary of the batch, and the stunning cover of the classic "Metal Thrashing Mad," a true tribute to the New Yorkers Anthrax among the genre's putative fathers.

A competitive and superb album in every aspect, including production, graphics, technical elegance, the best since the times of "Withdraw from Reality" by Broken Glazz and "Tension at the Seams" by the revived Extrema, bands from which they collect a great and heavy legacy, so aficionados of the genre are thus warned.