Author: Rok Klemše
Artist: Neurasthenia
Label: UKDivision Records
Release: 2007
Neurasthenia is a young thrash metal band from neighboring Italy, and they borrowed their name from George Miller Beard, who in 1869 defined neurasthenia as a psychopathological condition with symptoms of fatigue, nervousness, headaches, impotence and depression. The forty minutes of their debut album, Possessed, can bring on similar conditions too.
The guys list thrash metal’s legendary giants like Exodus, Testament, Vio-Lence, Exhumer, Tankard and others as their influences, but there’s precious little of the originality their idols offered hiding in these young Italians’ thrash. So what you get on Possessed is extremely typical thrash metal that mostly stays in mid-tempo waters. That alone is a minus, because the guys clearly aren’t mature enough yet to pull off an effective thrash/speed killer. Neurasthenia also often drift off into traditional heavy metal territory, and the mix doesn’t quite work for them. The album is teeming with generic riffs that don’t stand out in the slightest, so even after 10+ listens it’s almost impossible to remember any individual track. The songs barely differ from one another, whether it’s the slower In Loving Of…, or the faster stuff we find in Feel Possessed. Most tracks are packed with melodic lead guitar parts that sound pleasant enough, especially in the intro to Feel Possessed, but just like the solos, they’re not spectacular in the least. The drumming is just as average, leaning mostly on the “cupa cupa” combo of snare and bass drums, and the bass lines also stay in the gray middle, even though bassist Lehmann can boast about playing a fretless bass. Neil’s vocals are average and quickly forgotten, even though he has a fairly pleasant clean voice as well as a rougher, grittier one, but for the most part it’s completely static and, sadly, pretty boring. The most dynamics he shows is in Feel Possessed, where he also uses a few growls in the style of Chuck Billy on later Testament records. The English lyrics are soulless and dull, and, in true Italian tradition, they’re teeming with spelling mistakes. Neil’s delivery is also often dismal, especially in the pathetic attempt at praising thrash metal in the track Neurasthenia.
Possessed is a thrash album that even the most diehard thrashers can safely skip. It’s a thoroughly average record, and 2007 saw a small sea of better thrash metal releases. Neurasthenia have a ton of work ahead of them, especially if they want their thrash, in these times of a renewed revival of the genre, with the old giants waking up and plenty of excellent young bands too, to break through to the point where they’d get mentioned in the same breath as bands like Bonded By Blood, Gama Bomb, Municipal Waste, Evile and others.
Lineup
Neil – Vocals, guitars (Furere)
Simone – Guitars
Matteo – Bass
Leo – Drums
Production
Neurasthenia
Tracklist
1.Screaming Corpse
2.Fell Possessed
3.In Loving Of
4.Majestic March
5.Neurasthenia
6.Assassination
7.The Last Order of God
8.Night Under Terror
