Rating: ★★☆☆☆

For a band that describes their genre as ‘Crust’ along with Grind/Punk, are Simbiose worth the listen? It’s been three years since their last release of Fake Dimension and now with the release of their latest album on the 16th of July which is in fact their forth studio album, my hopes are high to their ability to create great songs.

Describing their new album as a ‘raging, no-holds barred attack on the current social, political and economical events’, their efforts on making changes via music and lyrics seems apparent. The Portuguese band, originally founded in 1991 definitely has the right idea about how songs should be made, with a heart-driven theme and the experienced musicians to match. They describe their sound by implementing vile guitar tones with frenetic energy pouring out of every song. Said to be their best album yet, lets have a closer look.

As Economical Terrorism is a 14-track album, I will stay away from the common analysis of every song and keep this review short and sweet. Although yes there are 14 tracks, the majority of their songs are under the two minute mark so listening to this compared to a mainstream album where you generally get at least one or two songs that may last up to five minutes, your listening time may be the same. Payback Time is the first song to their album and their genre roots become evident. May be I finally understand what Crust stands for? There is definitely a lot of energy to this song but there is that typical thrash metal feeling that you get with some bands where their heaviness comes just for the sake of being heavy. The instruments revolve around one riff, constant pounding of the drums and shouting/ growling from the singer where I cannot for the life of me make out a single lyric. In hindsight the singers’ lyrics may be about the economical collapse or global recession or even poverty from the bands description on the album but all of this may as well be thrown out the window the lyrics cannot be made out. Or is that just me?

Carrying on through the album, track 4 named Rise Again would have to be my favorite of the album due to the more evident rhythm and melody compared to others. The drumbeat is quite infectious and this song actually has a solo unlike most of the others. It’s short, but sweet which really does show a bit more of their musical talent after playing for all these years. The singer also seems to pace himself to where the instruments can implement musical stings and riffs that make this song seem more professionally constructed than others. I am generally a fan of heavy bands with prime examples of While She Sleeps, The Devil Wears Prada and A Day To Remember, which I believe Simbiose are within the same league and style, however to this point I found it hard to get along with previous songs from the album due to its consistency of faced paced, anger driven music without any beatdowns, breakdowns or the calming down from what you would expect any band also described as Punk, to have. I am not one for repetition but I can enjoy Rise Again because of the variation.

Unfortunately, many of Simbiose’s other songs are very similar. Massacre em Utoya and Control my Life both come in with a fast drumbeat and singing after a five second intro difference and others follow the same layout. Total Descontrolo is fairly different due to having clean and soft tones which I was not expecting. The intro of this is built up with heavy riffs which is actually pretty good, however it does follow suit again like the rest of the others with pounding of the drums and typical singing, which seems to be their style. If you like that then you will love their album but if like me, you have a wide variety of taste and prefer melody in songs rather than liking a band for its core genre, then possibly Simbiose is not for you.

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/JONHIESIMBIOSE
Website: http://www.simbioseband.com/

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