Band:	Flatline
Album:	Pave The Way
Style:	Melodic death metal, Thrash metal
Release date:	February 2009

01. Blessed By Death
02. Generations Fall
03. Collapse
04. Dying Breed
05. Nefarious
06. The Passing
07. Deleted
08. God As My Witness
09. Worn Thin
10. Mulch

Career missteps, boring music and side-steps into nu-metal territory have certainly turned a lot of people off of groove metal back in the late 90s. Bands fell apart, morphed into a different sound or became jokes. But... groove metal wasn't actually in essence all that bad, was it? Well, Flatine doesn't think so and Pave The Way seems to be an attempt at recapturing what made this kind of music so exciting in the first place.

Remember those fast, rapidfire, yet still-heavy-as-fuck parts of Machine Head's Burn My Eyes? Well, Pave The Way is basically made up entirely of such parts. With great roared vocals, a trampling thrash performance and crushing production, Flatline is a little like Pissing Razors but with insanely superior songwriting. There is fire here of the kind that has long been distinguished by endless breakdowns, tough-guy shenanigans and over-produced yet boring songwriting in much bigger bands. As a matter of fact, so uniformly and consistently crushing is this record that it qualifies as one of those albums that I can't think of best songs to recommend. Seriously. They all have awesome triplet runs, monolithically heavy riffs, memorable melodies and intelligently utilized shards of extremity. This is groove-thrash metal of the absolute highest class.

Sadly, not all is commendable about this here release. Frankly, this is not particularly original stuff. This might be groove metal played well, but it certainly is not a re-invention of the style, not by a long shot. Pantera, Machine Head and label-mates Skinlab influences are abundant here, to the point of bordering on tribute. Current heavy-weights Lamb Of God also clearly have been a bit of an inspiration. Because of this, Pave The Way is an album that will still appeal primarily to those of us who are already established groove metal fans. The rest of us will probably ignore it and so much for paving the way for a return of the style...