I want to say I love Unprocessed, but the truth is, I've only heard like two of their songs. They released an album last year and I kind of skipped it entirely, and I'm not exactly proud of saying I like a band and then not actually bothering to listen to any of their albums. But, they announced a new album along with the drop of this ridiculous first single, and I'll definitely listen to this one.
Thrash is a stunning evolution of their sound compared to the days of Deadrose and Real, but a magnificent one, keeping the best elements of their sound and adding in better ones to make them truly one of the best progressive modern metal acts of today.
It starts off with that signature clean guitar tone of Manuel's, alongside his stunningly beautiful playing style that seamlessly blends a rapid concoction of notes. It goes straight into the chorus, and holy shit it is amazing. The whole band comes in and it is tight, and the vocals are borderline anthemic. I love that he leaned into his accent, one which previously made a few lines sound funny in earlier songs, actually makes the chorus sound a lot cooler with the way he pronounces some of the words. Not to mention, great vocals, a huge improvement in the power and stability of his voice.
The biggest improvement to his voice is pretty obvious though: he's doing harsh vocals now. And they introduced it in the best way possible, which is on top of an insane blast beat section. Such a good moment, the drumming obviously bringing a lot of the energy, but I love how the bassline holds it up as well. After that, they give us a whole verse of uncleans, and we can really see that he has it down, it's not just a one-off thing. Admittedly, it's not like super crazy, but the versatility that Manuel has now is insane.
And of course, the biggest thing about this song is the breakdown. They went for the extreme subversion of expectations here, playing into a gimmick but in such a smart way that I have to commend them. They dared to play the risky move and they were good enough to pull it off, but to be honest, who even thinks of something like this? A pure muted tremolo on one note, no drums and bass either, it was really one of those "I don't care, we'll do what we want" kind of moments. Not gonna lie, I thought it was a cool gimmick but sucked from a musical standpoint at first, but it grew on me over time. I think they did the smartest thing they could've done, which is to let it run once over with zero backing, and then bring in the drums and bass afterwards. It let's the shock value present itself in it's entirety, but then show to the listener afterwards that they can actually pull it off with the full band and make it a worthwhile musical element.
Thrash was a great first single for this album cycle, because it definitely caught everyone's attention. It's an amazing song, gimmick and otherwise, and a testament to their quality at this point in their career. It's also great to see them becoming more than just technical, and getting to the point where their songwriting ability as a whole is strong, from vocals and production to flow and cohesiveness. I am undoubtedly excited to see what else they have in store for their upcoming record.
Rating: 4/5