A review of Stress Angel "Punished by Nemesis"

 

Stress Angel

"Punished by Nemesis"

Dying Victims Prod. 2024

Released less than three years ago, Stress Angel's debut CD was a piece of solid metal. Maybe not outstanding enough to make me wait for the successor to "Bursting Chuch" with blushes on my face, but good enough that to feel that devoting a few moments to "Punished by Nemesis" was basically my duty. What did I expect from this material? Maintaining the musical line, zero experimentation and total old-school. And that's exactly what I got. The Americans are still anchoring in a port called "The Eighties / The Nineties". The new songs are a consistent development of ideas from the previous album, which means mixing, in the now heavily used cauldron, inspirations flowing from thrash and death metal classics. Perhaps with a little difference that on "Punished by Nemesis" there is a slight predominance of the latter genre this time, as well as a couple of black metal influences. Admittedly, there is no lack of very classic Teutonic thrash here, sometimes even heavy metal, with a handful of very good solos, proving that any simplicity of this album is the result, solely, of the conscious intentions of the creators. And this simplicity makes up the vast majority on these recordings. Take, for example, the drums, most of the time pounding out a repetitive, banally simple rhythm. Here, there is no force for any finesse, here you rumble hard and bluntly. Manny Sores' playing style reminds me a bit of the parts laid by Bill Andrews on "Leprosy." Vocally, there is no reinventing the wheel either. Just solid hoarse singing, with a slight overlay of reverb, occasionally moving into higher registers. We also have a drop of keyboards in these songs, but used very sparingly, as a very subtle addition. The most variety is in the guitar lines. You can hear that the musicians are at ease with the classics, and are well aware that a good old-style riff must be aggressive and catchy. Hence such they serve us. Without chasing the wind, keeping a rather moderate, someone might even say somewhat monotonous pace. Well, this proves all the more that you don't have to stand on your head to record an album "like in the old days" that keeps the level and brings back fond memories. I, once again, am satisfied. So look for the art cover with worms on it in the store and check out this band. Because it talks well.

- jesusatan