Lipid - Hagridden
2003 - Casket Records
By Philip Whitehouse
Go to the Lipid website.
Yes! After around six years of hold-ups (including an eighteen-month bout of legal bother which came from Lipid trying to get out of their contract with American label Pavement, with whom things were going badly 'for a number of reasons' according to the accompanying promo), Denmark heavyweights Lipid have finally released their debut album, Hagridden. Admittedly, this ten-track slab of lead heavy death/thrash metal is little more than a combination of their two previous EPs, 'God We Have Slain' and the more recent 6-tracker with the same name as this album, one can hardly complain when the material contained within is so essential.
Take the best elements of the Bay Area thrash scene (the brutality and attitude of the songs, the meaty-as-hell production) and mix that with the finest ingredients of Scandinavian death metal (dazzling musicianship and a seemingly effortless knack for penning an irresistible hook), and you've pretty much got Lipid summed up. This is an almost perversely satisfying platter of molten, neck-muscle-destroying metal, which never fails to provide a killer riff, flashy solo or throat-wrenching chorus to growl along to.
A powerful production (particularly on the drummer's snare) gives the songs added punch, and the band's obvious knowledge of the need for a certain sense of predictability in this style of metal means that it will be nearly impossible for the listener to refrain from headbanging violently during this album's stay on your player. Witness the slight, pregnant pause just after the intro to 'Previal Through Loss' that compels you to prepare for some full body slamming when the pummeling riff kicks in, or the mid-tempo section in the same song that segues seamlessly into an impressive but not ostentatious guitar solo.
In case you haven't picked up on my enthusiastic tones thus far in the review, I'll make it even clearer - I really, really like this album. About the only things that could have made it better for me would be slightly more technical solos and a greater use of hyper-speed sections for those exhilirating adrenaline-rush moments. That said, however, this album has been one of the more frequent squatters in my CD tray since its arrival, so who am I to nitpick? Fans of early Machine Head, At The Gates and possibly even Necrodeath would do very well to check this out in particular.
8.5/10
2003 - Casket Records
By Philip Whitehouse
Go to the Lipid website.
Yes! After around six years of hold-ups (including an eighteen-month bout of legal bother which came from Lipid trying to get out of their contract with American label Pavement, with whom things were going badly 'for a number of reasons' according to the accompanying promo), Denmark heavyweights Lipid have finally released their debut album, Hagridden. Admittedly, this ten-track slab of lead heavy death/thrash metal is little more than a combination of their two previous EPs, 'God We Have Slain' and the more recent 6-tracker with the same name as this album, one can hardly complain when the material contained within is so essential.
Take the best elements of the Bay Area thrash scene (the brutality and attitude of the songs, the meaty-as-hell production) and mix that with the finest ingredients of Scandinavian death metal (dazzling musicianship and a seemingly effortless knack for penning an irresistible hook), and you've pretty much got Lipid summed up. This is an almost perversely satisfying platter of molten, neck-muscle-destroying metal, which never fails to provide a killer riff, flashy solo or throat-wrenching chorus to growl along to.
A powerful production (particularly on the drummer's snare) gives the songs added punch, and the band's obvious knowledge of the need for a certain sense of predictability in this style of metal means that it will be nearly impossible for the listener to refrain from headbanging violently during this album's stay on your player. Witness the slight, pregnant pause just after the intro to 'Previal Through Loss' that compels you to prepare for some full body slamming when the pummeling riff kicks in, or the mid-tempo section in the same song that segues seamlessly into an impressive but not ostentatious guitar solo.
In case you haven't picked up on my enthusiastic tones thus far in the review, I'll make it even clearer - I really, really like this album. About the only things that could have made it better for me would be slightly more technical solos and a greater use of hyper-speed sections for those exhilirating adrenaline-rush moments. That said, however, this album has been one of the more frequent squatters in my CD tray since its arrival, so who am I to nitpick? Fans of early Machine Head, At The Gates and possibly even Necrodeath would do very well to check this out in particular.
8.5/10
