Sinister
Afterburner

How much I love this album... an album from a band I unfortunately thought was dead. After the departure of the original singer Mike, Sinister with the beautiful but not very impactful (in my opinion) Rachel on vocals released two unconvincing albums. Sure, "Creative Killings" isn't such a bad album if we exclude the singer's not very impactful vocals with Sinister's music, while "Savage Or Grace" remains a rather poor album even in terms of songwriting. After these two unfortunate albums, the breakup happened, and now the subsequent reunion.

The band seems reborn; finally, the times of masterpieces like "Hate" and "Aggressives Measures" seem to return. The former drummer of the band takes over the microphone, the vocal timbre of the new singer is very powerful, and it could be compared to Mike of "Aggressives Measures". The guitar riffing reaches a power that the previous two releases didn't have (probably due to the disastrous production), and finally, thanks to the good production, we can hear the terrible razor-sharp guitar riffs that have been making fans headbang since 1991. Completing all of this, we find a greater dose of melody, it seems that the band wanted to create a complete work where violence and dark melodies that made the band great perfectly intersect. The bass lines are often covered by other instruments, but in various passages, they stand out, showcasing the bass player's massive technical skills. The drumming is truly excellent, with more thought-out parts (very common in this album), we find blazing fast blastbeats and accelerations at the limit of the impossible, as commanded by the now consolidated Sinister sound.

The album opens in the best way with "The Grey Massacre", a crushing track that promises live turmoil with an evocative and damn beautiful melodic interlude, continuing with "Men Down", my favorite track that alternates the usual frightening drum accelerations with more thought-out melodic parts with technique superior to many other more renowned bands. "Presage Of The Mindless" is a long suite where a sick melody accompanies the listener on their journey to hell, another notable track is "Into Submission", the rest of the album flows perfectly. "Afterburner" is a great return even though the complexity of the songs and the average length means it requires various listens to be fully digested...