Gurd - Bang!
Dockyard 1 records - 2006
By Adam McAuley
Very punishing thrash is offered here and the band do a pretty good job of emulating the sound fostered in the early nineties with their own distinctive aura so totally permeating every note. Their vibe very much resembles what began to emanate at the time known as groove thrash and a very solid comparison point would thus be the likes of Machine Head who really performed the style better than anyone else with their first album in particular. But these guys have a slightly more hardcore influenced tinge, both lending them there own style, but also distancing them slightly from band's such as the above in the case that someone was looking for a completely copy of that pioneering sound.
Again, Gurd sound very energetic for the most part, but their riffs never transcend the level of moderately enjoyable at most, so at times the album comes across as slightly, but far from totally, generic. They also sound perhaps slightly more like what you'd expect from the thrash genre with a choppier, rather than entirely groovy aspect. Thus it comes across as something that's a little difficult to classify, but at the same time doesn't lend itself to one genre only and hence has a feeling of being a sort of amalgamation. The somewhat bland feel of the album is also its biggest downside, with it never really reaching the exciting peaks that either of those different types of thrash can. The vocals are an appropriate mixture of screams, bellows and singing fitting the ambiguous nature of the album.
All of these things are well displayed on the first track, "The Grand Deception", alone, so you have a good idea of what to expect with the rest of the album. Overall, Bang! is a solid album that's slightly hampered by an identity crisis.
7/10
http://www.gurd.net/
http://www.dockyard1.com/
Dockyard 1 records - 2006
By Adam McAuley
Very punishing thrash is offered here and the band do a pretty good job of emulating the sound fostered in the early nineties with their own distinctive aura so totally permeating every note. Their vibe very much resembles what began to emanate at the time known as groove thrash and a very solid comparison point would thus be the likes of Machine Head who really performed the style better than anyone else with their first album in particular. But these guys have a slightly more hardcore influenced tinge, both lending them there own style, but also distancing them slightly from band's such as the above in the case that someone was looking for a completely copy of that pioneering sound.
Again, Gurd sound very energetic for the most part, but their riffs never transcend the level of moderately enjoyable at most, so at times the album comes across as slightly, but far from totally, generic. They also sound perhaps slightly more like what you'd expect from the thrash genre with a choppier, rather than entirely groovy aspect. Thus it comes across as something that's a little difficult to classify, but at the same time doesn't lend itself to one genre only and hence has a feeling of being a sort of amalgamation. The somewhat bland feel of the album is also its biggest downside, with it never really reaching the exciting peaks that either of those different types of thrash can. The vocals are an appropriate mixture of screams, bellows and singing fitting the ambiguous nature of the album.
All of these things are well displayed on the first track, "The Grand Deception", alone, so you have a good idea of what to expect with the rest of the album. Overall, Bang! is a solid album that's slightly hampered by an identity crisis.
7/10
http://www.gurd.net/
http://www.dockyard1.com/
