AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): NO AMNESTY — “PSYCHOPATHY”

 

Psychopathy is the debut album of the Barcelona band No Amnesty. It will be released on November 14th by Xtreem Music — and it’s an explosive metal fireworks display, one that just gets more and more eye-popping the deeper in you go.

We’re told that when the band formed in 2012 the average age of the members was 15, and now it’s 20 — other than the “old man” of the group, new vocalist Albert (ex-Fuck Off), who is 30. (Since the band’s 2013 debut EP, A New Order For Attack, they’ve also recruited a new drummer and a new bassist.) But their relative youthfulness is part of what makes the album so surprising, because it really sounds like the work of far more experienced hands.

 

 

The songwriting is excellent, and the band’s technical skills and their feel for the music is just as outstanding. The songs are a style of turbocharged, prog-tinged modern thrash that reminds me of Revocation (although with very different vocals), but mixed with other ingredients that seem to range from power metal to the classic stylings of Judas Priest and Iron Maiden.

The music delivers a vibrant mix of hugely addictive riffs, anthemic melodies, head-hammering rhythms, and epic-level, high-octane solos (sometimes delivered by dueling guitars) that seem tailor-made for big arenas. And it also creates changing moods as well as rhythmic dynamism — ominous, brooding, soulful, boisterous, and blood-lusting.

Behind the mic, Albert powers out high, sky-scraping, near-shrieked vocals with an abrasive edge of boiling madness in them, as well as soaring vibrato falsettos (which are part of why the songs sometimes invoke the connection to classic metal antecedents).

The band do an effective job switching things up over the course of the album (and within songs), including the insertion near the album’s mid-point of a mesmerizing acoustic guitar instrumental, accented by violin strings (“The Prophecy”), that both shows off the guitarists’ technical skill and provides a change of pace and intensity. And there’s another attention-grabbing acoustic piece in the sinister, ballad-like opening of “Eternal Night”, while the slow, hallucinatory interplay between bass and guitar provides a break in “Fight Below the Fire”.

And those are just a few examples of things the band do to keep the listener hooked all the way through the album — which proves to be an enormously entertaining thrill ride from beginning to end.

 

Listen to our album stream below, and avail yourselves of his pre-order link:

Pre-order:
https://xtreemmusic.bandcamp.com/album/psychopathy

Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/noamnestyband