URTO – Upside Down

Instead of taking the world by storm from left to right, Urto chose to do it upside down. This is just a small giggle in order to commence this review of the Italian Thrash Metal delight from the mob district of Sicily who’ve come through with a debut, which goes by the name of Upside Down.

As their fellow label mates in Punishment 18 Records, Brain Dead, Urto is a full blown American influenced Thrash Metal machine, to be precise, aside from the fact that they aren’t American, their Thrash is of the Old School, Bay Area slaughter type in the veins of Exodus, Heathen, Forbidden, Testament and the old aura of Metallica. Upside Down comes out six years after the band’s first demo, Numbers, and eleven years since the band first started up thrashing up the place.

From the first delays of “The Dilemma Remains” and till the last crushing beats of “Requiem For Brainwork”, it’s an all out Thrash attack without taking prisoners. Urto’s material is a saw chopping craze in the spirit of the Old School with several additions of rather more modern elements with several grooves and a few weighty kick downs. Even with the existence of these modern elements, Urto is an Old School Thrash band and their attitude is equally the same as late 80s to early to mid 90s bands. With the majority of their influences from the old, Urto tried to take their music into higher levels with numerous progression turnouts such as breakaway beats, unusual bass works, surprising lead / rhythm guitar outbursts and the ample usage of their long compositions as a solid ground to divide their passages into partial musical sections. Urto’s five piece killers will thrash your brains out with excellent riffs, even if there are a little more than a few repetitive elements within the main riffs, slicing bass works, a masterful Hetfield crossed with White type of vocals and a bad ass of a drummer at the paddles.

Urto’s attempt on designing long songs is virtually a success versus an unconstructive tryout, however, due to the length of their songs, which most of them tops the five minutes barrier, Urto seem to lose the songs’ main musical formulas and it seems they chose to break them in order to form a tune within a tune. On most of the songs they succeed in turning back to the original form of the song eventually, yet there are some songs which are hard to recognize or even to remember where you were because of Urto’s overly creative writing. There can be progress and advancements in Thrash Metal, yet you’ve got to maintain the same direction with each song and not enter the listener into a guessing game of “What is the song being played at this moment?”

Beyond that, Urto’s music is overwhelming and its utter power is something to be crazy about. Their deliverance is what makes them such a wonderful act and they show a great promise in Thrash and in the Metal world in general for the future to come.

Destructive tunes from Upside Down are as follows: “Remote Control Seizure” – A total Thrash Metal thrill about the TV programs many love to hate such as “American Idol”, “Survivor” or any kind of a reality knock-out fling. “The Second Coming” – A long chase through the barren lands of misfortune, a well-constructed song with many different tunes in it, Urto did their best on connecting all the segments to create this one. “The World Upside Down”, “Mind Forged Manacles” and “The Dilemma Remains” are also great features with lots to offer.