Riding the long coattails of the global pandemic far right governments pack high courts with sycophants who help push inhuman statues such as zero tolerance abortion bans, stifling the right to peaceful assembly to petition government for a redress of grievances citing "national emergency" while promoting national policies and rhetoric which used to be exclusively appropriate at Ku Klux Klan rallies, and that from top government officials! But there’s hope? In the midst of a red (Republican) state, in Little Rock, Arkansas (notable for the base of the Christian metalcorers Living Sacrifice) there sprouts a lone blue (Democrat) shoot of dissent, Terminal Nation, proclaiming the coming of the "Holocene Extiction" to anyone who listens, like a voice crying in the wilderness with the stylings of Darkest Hour’s "Godless Prophets & The Migrant Flora" (2017), fury of Napalm Death and power of ancient Asphyx, Obituary and Pestilence, for a short but a devastating delivery which packs as much of a punch as surprising melody. Will you answer the call to rise, to glance away from your smartphone screen long enough to allow a possibility of a revolutionary thought?

Right from the starting tones of "Cognitive Dissonance" it is clear that Stanley Liszewski (vocals), Thomas Robinson (guitars, vocals), Dalton Rail (guitars, vocals), Chase Turner (bass, vocals) and Chase Davis (drums) do not fool around something which should have been abundantly obvious on Demo (2014) as well as "Waste" (2015) and "Absolute Control" (2017) EPs which foreshadowed this new communication. Many tracks are short, quick bursts of anger, such as "Master Plan" or "Revenge" but these are not the strongest points of this album. The best and most effective tracks are more nuanced, more sophisticated, such as the favorite, the anti-corporate anthem "Death For Profit" or the surprisingly melodic and progressive instrumental "Expired Utopia" abundantly drawing from Obituary’s "Slowly We Rot" (1989). Stanley leads the charge with powerful thought provoking tales of long known truths with a voice of now Martin Van Drunen (ex-Asphyx, ex-Pestilence) now Johan Patrik Mattias Liiva (ex-Arch Enemy, Hearse) now Mark "Barney" Greenway (Napalm Death) about narcissistic so called Christian leaders (so called for both words) who "play the victim yet they’re the aggressors", their mouths full of persecution complex flowing out of the abundance of their hearts of stone, "with their Bible belt around the necks of the weak", "wrongs of the Christian right" who "wouldn’t know oppresion if it nailed them to a cross" (Disciple Of Deceipt). But the worst, most horrifying truth is what we’ve known all along – "the system is not broken, this is what it was always meant to be" (Master Plan) yet, still, "those who bow to their own oppressor are the weakest link in the chain of being" (Leather Envy). It is notable that the album ends with a riff very similar to Gojira from the seminal "From Mars To Sirius" (2005) as if what The French death metallers had once warned about has now come to pass with "Holocene Extinction".

Mankind has lost the fight for its own survival as a species and "Holocene Extinction" is the soundrack – mercilessly peeling alive your skin of false assurance and hope for a better tomorrow carefully woven together to avoid confrontation but, to borrow from the label’s promo, "lines are being drawn and the possibilities of compromise are going up in smoke." But how can we make the world a better place when we can’t agree on what that even means? All you can do, especially in some countries, is put on your headphones and fan into flames the glowing embers of descent courtesy of Terminal Nation and "Holocene Extinction" because, you can’t save the world which refuses to be saved.

https://terminalnationhc.bandcamp.com/