MINATOX69 – Collapse

MINATOX69 - Collapse
  • 7.3/10
    MINATOX69 - Collapse - 7.3/10
7.3/10

Summary

Mad4music
Release date: June 12, 2020

Sending
User Review
0/10 (0 votes)

Collapse, the newest release from Italy’s Minatox69 and their first full-length, starts strong with “I Can’t Believe”, a genre-defying track indicating how overflowing the band’s sonic bag of tricks is. Labelled Melodic Thrash Metal in the albums’ promo sheet, Minatox69 pull from a wide variety of styles and subgenres to craft a bold set of songs sure to reward with each successive listening. The Progressive and Thrash elements are evident in the first couple bars of the song, but the tune also incorporates some heavy Groove Metal back to back with Death Metal styling. Subsequent tracks alternate clean with rough vocals, screamed vocals and sung vocals—vocal harmonies are employed on several tracks.

The propulsive force of Minatox69’s sound comes mainly from Bozart’s vocals and the rapid-fire precision of Tado’s drumming. Although Minatox69 has two guitarists (Fox and Cupido), center stage is just as likely to be taken by Checco’s bass. Several of the songs, notably the mercurial title cut, feature interesting, science fiction-y guitar tunings reminiscent of Piggy’s playing in Voivod. Unfortunately, the otherworldly guitar sounds almost never move out of the background; “Frozen Blood” begins and ends with some Voivodian guitar effects that set the listener up for a shimmering solo that never arrives. An is an interesting track, but again one relying so heavily on the vocal and percussion one wonders if pushing the guitars so far down in the mix was a production decision.

The first four songs are the rage-filled heart of the album; the overall impact of Collapse begins to deteriorate after “Wht!?#”, a short throwaway instrumental. “Guilty” has passages that sound like Incubus or Cold and despite the strong vocal and drumming fails to fully get off the launching pad; “Next Enemy” likewise never really attains altitude, although it ends with a rare guitar solo. “Plastic Apocalypse” has a great guitar riff buried deeply in the mix, completely submerged under the vocals. “Cupidity” launches with a very Cold-like sound, at least until the drums kick in, and there is some clever interplay between the two guitars as the song progresses.

Perhaps most confusing is the decision to end with “Cyrus”, a quiet, pretty, instrumental which again gives guitar and bass equal weight. Possibly, the band intended the calming effects of this tune to act as a palliative to the outrage expressed in the previous nine cuts.

Despite the weaker back half, the first four tracks of Collapse are thoroughly unique, and they pack enough punch to satisfy fans of Thrash as well as Progressive Metal.

Author

  • Daniel Waters

    Daniel was a reviewer here at Metal Express Radio. Iron Maiden’s Piece Of Mind wasn’t the first Metal album he owned, but it was the one that lifted the lid off his soul when he received the record as a gift on his 15th birthday. He's been a Metal fan ever since. He's probably best known as the author of various Young Adult novels such as the Generation Dead series and the ghost story Break My Heart 1,000 Times, now also a major motion picture entitled I Still See You, starring Bella Thorne. Writing and music, especially Heavy Metal music, has always been inextricably linked in his mind and career. His first paid gig doing any type of writing was for Cemetery Dance, where he wrote a horror-themed music column called Dead Beats, and when he was writing the first Generation Dead novel he had a ritual where he started his writing day with a Metal playlist that kicked off with “Crushing Belial” by Shadows Fall.

    View all posts

Be the first to comment

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.


*


This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

The reCAPTCHA verification period has expired. Please reload the page.