SPECIES

SPECIES “To Find Deliverance”

By Dr. Abner Mality

This is kind of a cool and unexpected discovery. Polish band SPECIES play a kind of thrash metal you don’t hear much of these days...progressive, quirky and not afraid to go off on a tangent. The press sheet compares them to CORONER, TOXIK and XENTRIX. That in itself is unusual. And surprisingly, it’s a very accurate description.

The sound has a lot of Bay Area overtones, but SPECIES really throws a ton of cool time changes and interlocking riffs at you. MEGADETH in their “Peace Sells/Rust In Peace” phase comes up as a reference as well. After a proggy intro “Rare Signals”, “Parasite” dives into progressive thrash, with even some digressions into jazzy, more laidback territory. From there, these guys just keep on jamming. “Malfunction” is a great instrumental with some sizzling lead work that leads right into the heads-down “Thy Name is Slaughter”. The bass is prominent throughout the album and hops around like a Mexican jumping bean. The real test comes with the 11 minute plus “Ex Machina” and SPECIES is up to the task. The track seems to fly by and isn’t boring at all.

You can tell these guys also like their RUSH and KING CRIMSON, which is no bad thing. The overall production is rather dry, which doesn’t bother me but which might disturb those used to modern digitized sounds. Even the cover of the album seems to be out of a small label circa 1986. But that adds to the charm.

I was quite pleased by “To Find Deliverance” and hope SPECIES can fight their way to some kind of recognition in today’s crowded scene.

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SPECIES