“Out For Blood” is the newest full-length
album from American death/groove band Progressive Chemistry. Their sound spans
a variety of subgenres and styles largely focused in heavy metal, but
occasionally showing outside influence as well. With that said, the primary
sound they employ is an interesting hybrid of death metal with lots of groove (with more emphasis on the latter). In
general, this means that you’ll get plenty of growling, alongside riffs that
would fit in death metal songs, but played considerably slower. Sometimes it
makes the band sound more restrained than they should be, but clearly their
focus is not on playing as fast as is humanly possible.
Admittedly, this style is not my thing, but
the band is able to create something that even I can enjoy. The first two full
tracks, “Hostile Intent” and “Out For Blood”, are definitely the best on the
album because feature the strongest, most interesting riffs, as well as the
most cohesive songwriting. Subsequent to these songs, the band occasionally
goes off the rails a little bit. One example is the punky “Prosthetic”. Barely
cracking 90 seconds, this song sounds like it was influenced by any number of
classic hardcore punk bands, but it doesn’t quite fit in with the rest of the record.
Similarly, the track “Haunted” shows the band experimenting with clean vocals,
and to put it quite bluntly, it just does not work. This song actually opens
with a cool clean guitar section that features an awesome shredding solo over top, but quickly
falls apart when the vocals enter. Unfortunately these vocals also show up elsewhere on the album, such as on "Inside You", where the band abandons any trace of death metal in favour of full-on groove metal.
“Out For Blood” does show a lot of promise,
but it also has room for improvement. While there are pockets of bands who thrive
on the groove sound, it feels like this sound is designed to strip away
everything that makes death metal or thrash metal great. If Progressive
Chemistry tightens up the production, keeps the tempos consistently high with a
more punk/thrash-style beat, and drops the clean vocals altogether, it would be
easy to see them ascending the ranks of metal in America. This style just feels
like it’s waiting to explode into something more aggressive.
Highlights
"Hostile Intent"
"Out For Blood"
Final Rating
3.1/5 or 62%.
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