English reviews

www.tonguesofdestruction.com

Switchback play an aggressive mixture of death, thrash metal and hardcore, and hell does their latest offering slay! I think I found my favorite suisse band.

In the vein of At The Gates, In Flames or Darkest Hour, Switchback manage to sound diverse, melodic yet undeniably heavy. The title track, e.g. has those pushing melodic guitar lines underneath the brutal assault that only few bands can reproduce. Then, at the two-minute-mark, there are some really bouncing parts, strange female spoken vocals until the double-bass onslaught continues. I’d go as far as saying that this track outweighs all the tracks on the new Heaven Shall Burn. The drummer is so diverse, not only relying on breakneck speed, but also on groovy parts that will make your head bounce back and forth.

In the middle of “In The Deep Of My Soul“, the band shifts literally into this place as the pace is slowed down and some fantastic guitar melodies appear that hold on though the rest of the track which ends with a glorious ‘chorus‘.

The following “Dying Sky“ is a beautiful acoustic instrumental which serves as a breathing space in between the aggression while “Eco“ introduces female singing.

I guess you can imagine how it continues. The last song is another guitar-only ballad.

Overall, this is a pretty good album. But not too outstanding. Plus: nice to hear from a suisse band.

Rating:

6,5/10

 

www.tartareandesire.com

Switchback’s “Angel of Mine” was released on Araki Records on the first of September. Switchback’s music can be described as technical/melodic death metal. From the first few seconds Switchback’s album promises to leave no song below maximum speed levels. The music is finely worked out and the guitar work is very good. Apart from the vocal parts, which just sounds like a bunch of screams (which it abivously is) without any variety what so ever, and the fast monotone tremolo picking the first song “Teenage Dancefloor Garden” is a pretty decent song to start off with. “Ironic Sensation” proves a little more variety and style. Some whisper vocals between the technical fast parts combined with a couple of high guitar notes, makes this song into a better one than the previous. A couple of songs that stand out are “Angel of Mine” with a very good guitar intro, “Dying Sky”, a nice acoustic song and “Eco”, with its brilliant clean parts and are that what I hear some female vocals in the background? Yes indeed, which brings a welcome new element to the music. A bit too much repetition in vocals and some guitar riffs is one of the lesser things on this album. All in all “Angel of Mine” is not a bad album, and its a nice debut, however I, unfortunately, doubt wether Swtichback’s music will create an immense fanbase. 7/10 for the music, 4,5/10 for originality and 6,5/10 for quality of the record.

 

www.tempestwebzine.3x.ro

Araki Records is a new label to my ears or eyes, but that doesn't mean they are not professionals. I would say the contrary. They are quite good in packing up a promo and if you look closer on this CD's cover you'll see it's distributed in Germany as well, by Dead Serious Distro. Well, enough with this, Switchback is the main character in this story, hehe. A Swiss quintet walking on a path oppened by bands like In Flames, At The Gates, Haven Shall Burn or Unearth, so you can easily guss what's this debut album all about: impressive display of technical abilities on modern thrash death hardcore sounds, mostly with pure, relentless aggressivity and violence, but from time to time spiced up with melodic acoustic guitar parts to make it more complex and interesting. I tell you, this is almost a masterpiece and I'm fuckin' sure these guys will have a leading word in the metal scene in the near future. This debut album is the proof for my statement, so go get it!