Such is the case with Portugal’s Primal Attack, the best of the above mentioned bunch and their second effort, Heartless Oppressor.  Even though armed with a second rate, late 80s German thrash band moniker and the ‘groove metal’ label, I gave the album a go, and ended up coming away pretty impressed.

Typically I would not give a release like this much of a nod other than review purposes, but like label and country mates, Switchtense, something kept me coming back  and it’s the production from  by guitarist/backing vocalist Miguel Tereso at Demigod Recordings. Boy, is this thing fucking beefy!  One listen to the  mammoth grooves that start “The Prodigal One” or “Truth and Consequence” and even the most ardent groove/thrash hater (me included) will have a broken neck.

So then this delivery of  some truly thunderous, headbanging grooves and a bit of Dew Scented -ish tightly wound thrash actually ends up being a surprising winner of an album. The vocals of ‘Pica’ (of country mates Seven Stitches) are an acceptable, hoarse shout akin to Leif Jenson from the aforementioned Dew-Scented, though not as harsh as I’d like, they avoid nu metal pit falls except for a brief clean bridges on “Heart and Bones”, “Hypersonic Generation” and “XXI Century Curse”.

The band also keep it pretty full throttle throughout the release. No ballad or softer territory, as the 9 song, 39 minute affair, while not as high octane as Switchtense’s Flesh & Bones, is a pretty full on, energetic beat down from start to finish. Other impressive numbers are “Hypersonic Generation” which combines speed and power and opener “Red Silence”, with a huge closing breakdown.

I’m impressed with the homegrown thrash talent Rastilho Records is cultivating, and look forward more from both the label, this band and anything recorded at this studio.

This is tight, tight, high octane, go for the jugular thrash with an aggressive streak. The production is big and beefy with a nice throbbing bass and punchy, razor sharp guitars. Vocalist Hugo Andrade has a throaty, gruff shout that also ups the intensity. And it all comes together for a really impressive death/thrash record that captured my attention, something an album in the style has not done since maybe Kause 4 Konflict a couple of years ago.

Hitting that no filler, no nonsense 35 minute sweet spot, Flesh & Bones, only lets up for some neck snapping grooves and a few wailing solos, other wise hacking and slashing its way through 10 blistering songs. Right from the get  go, opener “All or Nothing” begins the throttling tempo that goes right until closer “Free Falling”. No ballad, no clean vocals, no bullshit. The  excellent moments come hard and fast too as the likes of the title track, the all make me want to punch people and things.

Of note is the very Sepultura-ish, super short blasts of  “Super Fucking Mainstream” and “Monsters”, volatile blast beats of  “Ignorance is Bliss”,  and the killer “Walking On the Edge”, which reminded me of Dew Scented‘s “Feeling Not”, one of my favorite metal tracks ever. And if the main chug in the chorus of “Old Souls (They Are the Ones)” does not get your head banging, you should probably give up metal.

Only 5 minute closer “Free Falling” slightly reigns things in with a more mid paced, but still energetic romp. It actually serves as a bit of a breather, allowing you to come down from the previous 30 minute beatdown, and an album that really took my by surprise, took me into a back alley and beat me senseless. And trust me, that’s not easy.

It’s not often you get to cover Buddhist-inspired metal, much less Buddhist metal from Portugal. I was very impressed by The Firstborn’s fourth release, The Noble Search, back in 2009. It blended prog and melodic death with thick, roiling sludge, not unlike Mastodon or Gojira, and then blessed it all with a breeze of East Indian instruments. If they had added a lot more of that orchestration and atmosphere, I would have been even more entranced.

Now, three years later, it appears that some of those prayers have been answered. Lions Among Men is awash in sitars and mysticism, trembling cymbals and whispering chimes, and the way they writhe and coil in and out of the band’s heavy, rhythmic crash is powerful and mesmerizing. Too bad, then, that the songs they’re lashed to are so dull.

For some reason, The Firstborn have smoothed out the angular riffage and choppier rhythms of their previous release in favor of a more ominous and monotonous wash of mid-tempo sludge. It starts with the title track, a slow build of growled vocals and mystical trails, like the veils being pulled away from perception and reality to reveal something greater, grander, infinitely wondrous. As the intensity builds, climbing and cresting in one tumbling, sludgy roar, you wait for the big crescendo to hit, for revelation and amazement to come pouring in with one massive punch of a peak. And instead, the song plateaus. It winds in on itself again a few times before finally cresting to that awaited climax, but by this time, the drama has been squandered. The peak isn’t loud enough, crazy enough, impressive enough. Hardly a revelation at all, in fact. And so it goes with most of the album: long, drawn-out songs that lope along at a frustratingly mid-tempo rumble, with a thick but overly-balanced production that offers too little contrast.

There are a few bright spots, of course – how could there not be, with such an interesting concept and palette? There are some busier, more urgent and involving rhythms in tracks like “Without as Within” and “Eight Flashing Lances” (the album’s best and most dynamic track). And as I said above, when the instrumentation comes in hard and heavy, as on “Wantless” and “Vajra Eyes,” it’s entrancing. There’s a great synergy between percussion and orchestration in these passages, and this is what should really define The Firstborn’s sound, not the long, building expanses of monotony that dominate much of this album.

I also have to mention the vocals again, as I did in the last review. The growls are blunted, muffled, heavy, a lot like Troy Sanders of Mastodon, and they work fine. The clean vocals that might throw you, though – they’re a weird, baritone croon that half-slink, half-melt around the melody lines. It’s obviously a stylistic choice, and (forgive my ignorance) possibly inspired by an Eastern or Buddhist chanting style, but all the same, you’ll either come to appreciate it, or you won’t. I’m still on the fence. “Eight Flashing Lances” features a higher-pitched croon, closer to conventional clean singing in progressive metal, and it’s far more successful.

You’d expect an album titled Lions Among Men to be ferocious, unrestrained and exciting, but instead, The Noble Search, which suggests a far more meditative experience, was the more dynamic album of the two. It’s a shame because the concept is unique and the instrumentation is well-integrated, but the revelations veiled at the summits of this journey are hardly worth the climb.

What these Portuguese rockers provide is a groove-ish, thrash-y metal with a hint of 10 year old metalcore—no autotune, no crab stance—and some melodic death metal. It’s an unholy mix between bands like Soulfly/Sepultura, Pantera, Machine Head and, say, Cataract. Simplistic, straight-up metal without any sort of wankery. Despite the album failing to leave a long lasting impression, it’s not bad. Really.

Switchtense’s musicianship and presentation are up to snuff, but the songwriting aspect still needs a bit more time at the Skunkworks factory; they need to elevate to the plane that separates the better from the good. The most important aspect—the riffs—do a bloody job with integrity like a good blue-collar worker should, but they don’t transcend time and space. Even if some of them stick for a song or two, I don’t think any of the 12 songs will suddenly and out of the blue pop into your head while you’re doing the groceries. Clocking in at 48 minutes, the album is about 10 minutes too long. But not once did I feel the need to push the stop button. I thoroughly had ‘fun’ with the album, as songs like “Face/Off”, “I Will Stand Stronger”, “This is Only the Beginning” and “The Legacy of Hate” are able to get at least some blood pumping.

Yet, Switchtense could do with plenty of more fist-pumping and senseless violence. The music simply didn’t beat me into submission like my niece does, or Construcdead’s unsung classic, Repent. That’s a good fucking, relentless album right there. Or Cataract’s With Triumph Comes Loss, which is another overlooked album.

In the end, Switchtense has that aura to them that makes me inclined to believe that they’re more intense live than on album. Hopefully, once they summon the follow-up, they’ll beat me up like a red-headed stepchild. We’ll see…