Label: AFM Records
Release date: October 21, 2009
Production: Achim Köler
Album length: 48.28 min
Genre: Thrash Metal
Rating: 9.0/10
Paradox! Yet another band from the generation of Euro thrash giants of German descent, with roots reaching deep into the eighties. It’s not hard to explain why the name Paradox gets dropped less often than those of fellow countrymen Sodom, Kreator and Destruction. They simply weren’t destined to put out as many albums and cement themselves as part of the Teutonic Euro thrash metal scene. And that’s actually a good thing, because Paradox stayed true to their roots, to their legacy, and never “overindulged” themselves to the point of giving in to assorted experiments that could have pulled them away from the core point of their very own heritage.
Thrash metal of the Paradox kind really doesn’t need that. These days it usually boils down to two options. Either we’re witnessing releases that do more harm than good, like the new Metallica album, or we’re witnessing a whole pile of reunited Bay Area thrash metal stories that, luckily, live up to the greatness brought by their legendary albums from the turn of the eighties into the nineties (e.g. the new releases from Heathen and Testament). Paradox belong in that latter category too. With the typically German razor-sharp production, Paradox don’t hide their Bay Area influences on “Riot Squad” either, while adding a pinch of melodicism, the kind that fits the way Western Europeans’ heads work.
What’s interesting is that the band recently went through a complete lineup overhaul. Of the original members, only singer Charly Steinhauer is left in Paradox today. Guitarist Kai Pasemann of Declaration Of Dependance is the only member Steinhauer revived Paradox with for the album “Electrify” (2008), after an eight-year break since the band’s third studio album “Collision Course” came out in 2000. But it was enough for the band’s original magic and energy to survive, carry over from “Electrify” and get an upgrade on the new album. “Riot Squad,” with all its virtues and uncompromising attitude, is especially solid proof that the lineup shuffle before “Electrify” brought stability and creative energy to the camp. Hence the unambiguous answer to the question of why the band needed only a one-year gap to release two excellent studio albums.
“Riot Squad” brings together ten sturdy, robust wreckers standing shoulder to shoulder, without a single dip in quality. Every song is played with the required fury, hunger and sinister bite. No slow songs, let alone ballad-ish ones. Paradox know only one guiding principle: merciless sonic terror!
The production on this album is once again optimized. The incredible drum sound is especially impressive, particularly the pounding of the double bass drum pedals, which bites in with real commitment through the whole running time of the album. It rolls along with relentless rage. It’s the engine of the ultrasonic speed Paradox are capable of building up. That goes above all for the opener Suburban Riot Squad and Hollow Peace right behind it, the closing Psychofficial, or Rise In Rank, No Place To Survive and Evolution Reset. Breaking every vertebra in your neck to “Riot Squad” is really no great feat. The contrast between the venomously wound-up guitar riffing, which is unbelievable considering all that extremely voluminous, noisy pounding and blazing comes from one single guitar, and the witty drum work is brilliantly highlighted by the masterful production. On top of that, it’s easy to pick out the excellent bass lines, whose rattling and tearing effectively doses out the dangerous, flammable contents of the “Riot Squad” cargo. Rise In Rank, a perfect thrash/speed metal banger, is one of the tracks that underline this contrast most effectively, with a highly melodic payoff in its intro section. It’s also one of the most destructive songs here, and afterward you’ll need to swallow a box of aspirin just to get back to normal daily functioning.
Charly Steinhauer is a crazy vocalist who doesn’t skimp on furious barking and holds absolutely nothing back. A song like Hollow Peace in particular conjures up a younger James Hetfield (Metallica), making full use of his lung capacity behind the mic. Scandalous! As a guitarist, Pasemann has seasoned all the transitions, which are mostly woven into semitone-shaped guitar phrases, with inventive guitar embellishments. He also often reaches for tasty fast-picking motifs over the riffs. With this work, the man proves his experience. His guitar solos are just one more piece of poetry on this album.
Even in the moments when the band eases off the speed a notch, as on Riptide, a kind of crossbreed between a Painkiller-era Judas Priest riff and the best you can inherit from the Bay Area thrash metal movement, the rolling drums never stop following the destructive torpedoing of the double bass drum barrage. Then there’s Nothingness, whose intro motif breathes an ominous touch into the album. This song contains the most melodic motif among the choruses on the record. The just-under-seven-minute Planet Terror boasts the richest and most varied motifs, with instrumental passages doing the heavy lifting (the first of them has real crossfire between bass and guitar). The solo is once again a true gem of the song, and the deviously constructed transition from verse to pre-chorus is especially interesting.
The feeling a listener gets when the album “Riot Sguad” spins in the CD player is extreme noisy intensity all over the place. Sonic terrorists like Paradox, who pair the aggression of unleashed noise with this much quality playing, with witty guitar phrases, vivid guitar ornaments and a perfect collision of the rhythm section in contrasting harmony with the stamping of guitar phrases, are insanely hard to find today. Either bands of a similar pedigree, who once did this with their left hand, are creatively burnt out today, or (especially the younger bands) they don’t have enough knowledge, talent, feeling and experience (I’m pointing my finger at you, metalcore screamers!). With “Riot Squad,” Paradox don’t just prove that their defiance more than paid off. They also prove that you can still squeeze out a thrash metal album today that comes close to perfection in musical expression. No less and no more! With faith in defiance and by preserving the tradition of the best that the old school of thrash metal brought and enthroned! Let’s just hope the guys get out on some kind of tour, so we can one day enjoy the magic created in the studio live too.
Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Track list:
1. Suburban Riot Squad
2. Hollow Peace
3. Riptide
4. Rise In Rank
5. Evolution Reset
6. Nothingness
7. No Place To Survive
8. Dream Hero
9. Planet Terror
10. Psychofficial
Lineup:
Charly Steinhauer – vocals
Kai Pasemann – guitar
Olly Keller – bass
Roland Jahoda – drums
