Muffins Unbound

It's been far too long, but I'm proud to present another fine specimen of musical prowess to your ears. This has been a spectacular year for metal, and it's not over yet.

The next blessing that has been showered upon our mortal hearing orifices is courtesy of Tampa, Florida's quintet The Absence. Enemy Unbound is their third full length on Metal Blade Records. These five bring a wonderful blend of death and thrash metal that will make your ears bleed in joyful bliss.

What truly impressed me about this album goes beyond the face-meltingly impressive guitars, the guttural vocals, and the pounding drums. The Absence showcases a brilliant talent for songwriting, with songs that truly reflect the emotion that went into writing them.

Now, on to the actual music. Enemy opens with an instrumental that has an almost power metal feel to it. The guitars harmonize wonderfully for a pleasant aural experience. However, The Absence are not a power metal band, as you will quickly find out at the start of the second track (and for the rest of the album). "Erased" comes back and shows you what these boys are really capable of, with blistering drums and guitars. Then Jaime Stewart's vocals come in and the image is complete. Track number three, "Deepest Wound", may be my absolute favorite on the album. It is the definitive thrash/death song, with finger-bleedingly technical guitars, chest pounding guitars, and Jaime's growls screaming, "Marching onward to face our doom! This is our longest mile, our deepest wound!"

The next standout song is track five, "Enemy Unbound". It has a very thrashy feel to it, and you can't help but love the way it sounds. Number six is another instrumental. Now, most albums, especially metal albums, tend to lay off the brutal for a track in the middle of the album, but The Absence just keeps on wrecking. "Solace" is a portrait of exactly how talented they are, even if it isn't a point of rest. As if what they'd done so far wasn't enough, they actually wreck even harder after that. "The Bridge" and "Wartorn" are spectacular specimens of metal greatness. "Hidden In White" starts off with a quiet audio clip, which may get your hopes up for a bit of respite, but that will be quickly dashed, flayed, and drawn and quartered as they kick back into full death metal form. Just to mix things up a bit, they start "Vengeance and Victory" with a classical guitar solo that fades perfectly into the electrics.

This brings us to the close of the album. The Absence did something completely unexpected here, and I love it. They closed with a progressive metal instrumental with a hidden acoustic track at the end. That's right, an acoustic track - meaning acoustic guitars and conga drums. These guys have a level of talent completely absent (see what I did there? "Absent", "The Absence") from the current popular music scene, and whether you like the style or not, you can't ignore that fact. Enemy Unbound is an album that keeps finding its way back onto my playlist, and I suspect it will for quite some time. If you're a fan of excellent death or thrash metal, or just appreciate things that don't suck, I highly recommend picking it up.

>Pawn