Self-released
Release date: February 6, 2026
Production: Sarcasm
Album length: approx. 40.15 min
Genre: Speed Metal / Thrash Metal
Rating: 8.5/10
Will somebody please prove me wrong? Is there any other Slovenian thrash metal band from the early years of the new millennium that stuck around and is still making noise today? That era threw up a whole batch of young, new-generation bands that promised a ton. But it only lasted a few years. And sadly, it slowly sank. Speaking for myself, out of that whole crop, the only one that pops into my head twenty years later is Eruption. And that’s pretty much where the story ends.
And then the new Sarcasm album lands. An album from the pioneers of Slovenian thrash metal. At a time when our region flat-out needs records like this. Records that tell us thrash metal in Slovenia is still alive. It’s sad that it takes the genre’s own legends here to remind us, but better that than nothing.
Put bluntly, “Soulless Machine” is a very, very good album. In that sense it stands alongside what Sarcasm served up with “Something To Believe In” (2011), and a few times it even outshines it. But that was fifteen years ago. Sarcasm have been through changes since. Let’s leave the years out of it. They toughen you up and make you ripen. The last fifteen years? The album “Thrash” (2014) was still recorded with Mucy, and it brought the switch to Slovenian lyrics, followed six years later by “Pot v raj”, where both guitarists, Aleš Blaznik and Klemen Renko, took over the vocal duties. Why am I digging through history? Both albums certainly held up Sarcasm’s standards, but when you look at the whole picture of the band’s last three albums, the direction was toward a softer sound. Of course, that softening is relative too – every pair of ears hears it differently. “Pot v raj” is also credibly played and arranged throughout. But the vocals in Slovenian strip away some of the thrash bite. Slovenian is simply a lot more awkward to handle in verse meter than the much more singable English. “Pot v raj” certainly came across as sharpened and wicked. But precisely because of the Slovenian, the punk note on it swaggers around much more noticeably and at times almost overshadows the band’s thrash metal roots. Don’t get me wrong. Punk and metal are brothers. They can’t do without each other. And every good, proper thrash metal record has a sharp punk note running through it, but that note has to stay clearly in its subordinate place.
“Soulless Machine”, the successor, then, puts things back where they belong in this respect too. Back in an environment where the vocals work more competently. Aleš Blaznik (seven tracks) and Klemen Renko (three tracks) share the vocals on the album. So with English back in the mix, the whole picture of the new album is far more fluid than on its predecessor. Not only that. The band’s decision to cram just ten tracks onto it is also a good one, since it underlines and strengthens the album’s compactness as a whole. Especially given that the songs are really meticulously polished. The band picked the best of the best for it. Vocally, the new album brings real progress over its predecessor. And you can feel it. And that’s very, very important. Sarcasm no longer need to look for a vocalist. They found both of them right at home.
The opener puts things in exactly the spot you want them to be with Sarcasm and, of course, under the eternal spell of the timeless debut “Crematory”, quietly and subconsciously expect them to be. A resurrection of the primordial old-school thrash stance, one that seeks out and re-establishes the bond with the debut. When you’re talking about that kind of old-school speed/thrash metal gnawing, which the opening New World Order delivers right away, the link to their role models and their classic eighties deeds, like good old Metallica and Anthrax, makes all the more sense and feels all the more automatic. That’s it. If we ‘split hairs’ further, the new album radiates the most reflections of the old school of European thrash and speed metal. Especially the likes of Vendetta, Paradox, Accuser, early Angel Dust and/or Exumer. And, if I may be immodest, Coroner too. But Sarcasm do it their own way. The Slovenian way. They always have. And this time is no different.
What has always been a treat about Sarcasm is their musical sensitivity. On the new album too, every single track is very skillfully enriched with a dose of musical transitions that the Blaznik/Renko duo works into the compositions. The intros and outros of the songs, the ins and outs of the middle-eight passages (which are full of white-hot solos, by the way),… That’s why some songs sound extremely classic. Lost in time and space, and in that sense very homegrown! In other words, bathed in the glow of a recipe that embodies the band’s musical ID card and belongs to them alone. Aleš Blaznik remains an unshakable pillar in his vision. A true chieftain. In that sense, tracks like The Stone Age (with the internalized, ossified stance of N.W.O.B.H.M. impulses in its guitar harmonies) are that much sweeter to listen to. The band only eases off the assault a little in the main riff and chorus of the closing There’s Still Hope, yet even there they don’t show a shred of stepmotherly coldness toward the dark atmosphere that hangs over the album.
As for variety of ideas, there’s plenty of it, and it makes for a compact product on the scene. The songs are written at a high level and the quality doesn’t waver. The album doesn’t buckle in quality for even a moment. The band equipped the songs (especially the chorus melodies) with the harmonies of ‘street gang’ shouting, which is a basic trademark of old-school speed/thrash. The performance is also hugely convincing. It pulses alive and dirty, flays your skin with abrasive ferocity and eats in with corrosive bite. And from the first second to the last it holds on to something else that has always been typical of Sarcasm. The socially critical sting of the lyrics. The camaraderie within the quartet adds to the album’s compactness too. You can feel on the record that the working chemistry between the band members is right and that the building blocks of the sound complement each other very well, sense each other, and, you could say, breathe as one as a team. For each other. That’s why “Soulless Machine” is also, performance-wise, extremely tight, wonderfully contrasted, and speaks with a convincing, ominous organic feel.
“Soulless Machine” is an excellent record from a band in the mature era of its career. All that’s left for us is to get our hands on this album as soon as possible (preferably on vinyl) and rush to the band’s nearest gigs. “Soulless Machine” delivers a perfect old-school assault of the primal substance of old-school speed and thrash metal, with a right hook straight to the forehead that you won’t recover from for quite a while. It’s nice to be writing this while listening to the album of a band that will mark the milestone of 40 years of activity next year. As if all those years never even passed.
Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Track list:
1. New World Order (5:10)
2. Rebellion (3:42)
3. Hand in Hand (3:43)
4. O.C.T. (3:22)
5. World’s on Fire (4:44)
6. Faceless Mind (3:57)
7. Life is Short (3:45)
8. The Stone Age (4:17)
9. Payment (3:26)
10. There’s Still Hope (5:15)
Lineup:
Aleš Blaznik – guitar, vocals
Klemen Renko – guitar, vocals
Vito Stričevič – bass
Matevž Blaznik – drums
