ANATA - Under A Stone With No Inscription
January 8, 2004, 20 years ago
(Earache/Wicked World)
Really, it's kind of baffling that metal has come to this, shards and stones thrown up in the air and then landing back to the ground with no sense of structure whatsoever. And while Anata's definitely got precision to go along with these songs - crazy accuracy even - the name of the game makes a different kind of sense here. Amidst the thrash-death-grind-blast hybrid lies some amazingly aggressive stuff ('Shackled To Guilt', 'Entropy Within') that has all the neurons firing in the "kill" direction. At the same time, Napalm Death stands guilty of pioneering this amalgam-fest, that band called on as influence for this new metal subterfuge, but probably not understanding the poison it helped mix. It's all cool and good in the end; another bullet is added to the belt that is extreme music.
