Band:	Strident
Album:	Paranoia Of The Tyrant
Style:	Thrash metal
Release date:	August 2023

01. Hard-Bitten
02. Paranoia Of The Tyrant
03. War
04. End It
05. Sick Irony
06. Today Is On Display
07. Incarnated
08. Under My Flag
09. Deal With The Beast

I jumped on this one pretty quickly, which is kind of odd, because thrash metal isn’t usually the subgenre I gravitate towards. Granted, when I saw the name Strident, I was thinking of the South African power metal band, not the Israeli thrash metal band... Still, though, a bit of raw aggressive riffing and high-energy pace is something I can always appreciate.

That’s exactly what you get from Paranoia Of The Tyrant: it is often relentlessly fast-paced and in your face, managing to blend a bit of Anthrax and a lot of Testament into their sound. So that’s good, right? In theory, yes; in practice, however, this record feels a bit like a shallow decoction. Everything from vocals, production and riffs feels a step or two below the quality of a Testament. Prepare for a lot of comparisons between both bands in this review.

Recently, I actually have been re-listening to the last 2 albums from Testament, because I couldn’t shake off the feeling of similarity every time I listened to Paranoia Of The Tyrant. The idea was to find out what doesn’t work for me on Strident’s latest, even though I should be really liking this on paper.

It didn’t take long to realize that there were multiple things that hold this album back. I have mentioned some of these things earlier on in this review, so time to get a bit more in-depth about them. Michael Shliapochny does an admirable job in the vocal department, but (like with a lot of thrash metal bands) the reality is that the overall feel of the vocal delivery is rather one-note. With Chuck Billy, there’s some playfulness in his delivery, as well as an approach that allows him to “live out” the lyrics with his vocals; a song like “Symptoms” on Testament’s last album is a perfect example. In essence, it’s also aggressive all the time, which again is of course a thing that’s a hallmark of thrash metal. However, there are those brief moments where he mixed a little bit more clarity into his vocal fries, and that adds a surprising amount of extra depth to the music.

Another thing you can take away from Testament is that the drums are also often less straight-forward and a little bit more playful. Not only that, but there’s another major issue with Paranoia Of The Tyrant that becomes clear: the production of the drums. The cymbals are completely crushed in the mix. Barely any distinction can be made between each cymbal piece, and they don’t pierce through the parts of the production, which they really need to do, if you ask me. Why? Well, thrash metal can be aggressive, fast and dark, but it also needs some small sparks of clarity sprinkled in it. Cymbals and bells are the perfect tool for that, but when your production squanders that opportunity, then that’s very unfortunate.

I also mentioned the riffs, and truth be told, they are not that bad; I like their tone and power, but there’s a lack of variety and memorability. The title track is the only exception for me, which is the second song on this album. There, they play a little bit more with some more melody in the riff work, and it sounds really nice. You hope it’s a great appetizer, and you hope it sets the tone for a nice dinner course. Sadly, once that satisfying appetizer is over, though, most of the other songs start to blend into one big stew. One that doesn’t lack “oomph”, but lacks taste. It’s very much like adding so much spice in a dish to the point that it’s just eye-wateringly hot, and there’s no flavour left.

Let me be clear, this is not a bad album in my book. It just suffers from a couple of specific points that I mentioned, and of course also from the fact that it leans closely in style to another well-liked and established band, so inevitably comparisons will be drawn. Overall, it's worth a listen for die-hard fans of the subgenre; for the others, you can safely skip this one.