Band:	Blame
Album:	Blame
Style:	Death metal, Thrash metal
Release date:	November 2007

01. En Vert Et Contre Tous
02. Opium
03. Mineurs Minés
04. La Came Isole
05. Carpe Diem

Blame. I really can't help it but I find Blame a somehow awkward, almost ill-chosen band name. Whatever, must be part of the image I guess. Now, what we have here is a young and dynamic French band playing a remarkably atypical blend of heavily Thrash-influenced Death metal. While Death metal is key on this album, the Thrashy undertones are not far away, moreover, on certain tracks the Thrash sound is close to dominant (like for example "Opium" and La Came Isole").

The band has been in existence for only a couple of years and this self-titled EP is actually the band's first-ever studio release. Nonetheless Blame has already built up a solid live reputation, so they had a lot of good, cliché-less ideas to put into this record. And so, the band has come up with five stylishly ferocious songs, full with roughness, power and rhythm. Although Blame are not the fastest band around, they still keep up the face throughout the whole effort. They even end with a total blast: "Carpe Diem" is clocking in under the two minute mark; brutally short but amazingly powerful. The band is also paying a lot of attention to the details: not a single drum beat, riff, solo, grunt or breakdown implies to be out of place. And while the vocals are seemingly harsh, they're still pretty intelligible, but unfortunately in French, something that gives the record a unique twist though, you have to give them that.

While the band is trying really hard in all different kind of ways to convince the listener of their capabilities, the end-result is by times hard to comprehend. What Blame are offering on this five tracker is a blend of inspiring ideas and exciting concepts without regard to a clear finishing touch. This whole EP long the band takes you on a stirring journey full of imposing frames, so to say, but at the end of the road not many of those frames are still sticking in your mind. Indeed, this is quite the momentary record and this not only due to its short duration.

Short-lived or not, is this something worth checking out, you ask me? Well, it's very likely this band will draw your attention one way or another. As said, musically the band comes up with some adequate, albeit not easy digestible, metal material, both Thrash as Death as Thrashy Death. I won't say this young French band is overly technical or too chaotic, far from it, it's just that the music, although well composed and arranged, is a tad too hectic because of the exuberant mix of plenty of different kind of elements, insofar that the outcome is restricted in accessibility. On that matter I encourage the band to consider writing a full-length album where they have the range to work out these ideas more. 'Cause, no matter how you put it, it still stays considerably interesting stuff. This is the sort of stuff the adventurous Death/Thrash metal person will easily fall for, certainly when that person has a moderate knowledge of the French language.