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Hailing from Paris, France, Blackened come with all-cylinders-firing extreme Thrash Metal on their seven-song EP, titled The Aftermath. The band has clearly decided to go for a busy sound, constantly keeping the pedal to the metal and pushing forward like a supersonic F/A-18 Hornet on a combat mission.

Despite these fellows' one-dimensional and straightforward approach to playing Thrash Metal, they still manage to sound well rehearsed and capable of kicking our asses hard. The riffs hit the targets accurately, the solos are spot-on, the drummer shows absolutely no mercy for the skins and vocalist Rui Nunes bellows his lungs out like a teenage version of Martin van Drunen (Pestilence, Asphyx, etc.), sounding like he could be in the final stage of pneumonia. My only complaint is that the songs tend to sound too much alike, so more variety would be welcome. The album's title track, however, is a nice exception, pounding our skulls with some efficient mid-tempos. This is also the direction they should consider taking.

This French quintet is still early in their career, so I believe we can expect a fair amount of development in their camp in the coming years.