THE RESISTANCE – Coup De Grâce

The second full-length from Sweden’s The Resistance, "Coup De Grâce" features a lot of known players in the thrash and death field – especially if names like The Haunted and In Flames matter in your world. Too often as musicians mature they lose a lot of that youthful spunk and passion that made them learn their craft in the first place- fortunately for us, this quintet is all about cranking things up to ten and spitting out quick assaults in 1-4 minute bursts.  

Keeping things very primal in their violent death metal style, you have to love the thunderous drum rolls during "Violator" from Chris Barkensjö that give way to just a solid mid-tempo chug/slam that early Sunlight studio maniacs crave. Conversely the sludgy, almost doom-oriented "Death Blow" gives Jesper Strömblad and Daniel Antonsson a chance to level the aural perspective in early Entombed / Grave ecstasy. Plenty of material that causes body slamming, circular high octane audience action – tracks like the stair step picking "Resolution" or Motörhead meets death-oriented "The Drowning" should meets with plenty of rousing approval.

Marco Alo as a vocalist brings blood bursting larynx action to ultimate levels of intensity – "I Welcome Death" for instance has this menacing clarity while the chorus showcases different levels of his screaming to growling expertise, while "World Order" has the man holding out notes that make paint melt and enemies run for the hills. And you can’t go wrong with 13 tracks in under 40 minutes, as you’ll be hard pressed to find the skip button when the next riff storm appears.

Old school is in session, and The Resistance have released another essential textbook for the current and long-time metal heads to study and put to good use.

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