I am more than willing for a band to try and blend together genre lines as it can lead to something unique as well as entertaining, and it’s especially prevalent in metal which is something that I truly enjoy with my entire heart. Thrash tends to not be subject to as much fusion, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t a market for it. Cripper appears to agree with me on that, and their upcoming album is definitive proof that there is indeed room for experimentation.

From the offset, there doesn’t seem to be much change from your typical thrash sound going on with Cripper’s upcoming piece, “Follow Me: Kill!”, but later on, it definitely shows its face. In the first half, we’re treated with massively aggressive thrash that doesn’t fuck around for even a second, and that leads to a very rhythm focused sound that delivers to the very end with Cripper knowing exactly how to make tantalizing growls work with monstrous instrumentation. Yet in the latter half when the songs start to get quite long, that’s where a change takes place. It may be quite subtle to anyone not paying a whole lot of attention, but if you’re immersing yourself in “Follow Me: Kill!” is far from unnoticeable. The music starts to take a form that’s still undoubtedly thrash metal but it takes on qualities of another style that I can’t quite put my finger on. It’s slightly djenty but I can’t say that for certain, and while I’m all for a tone shift I feel like Cripper could’ve pulled it off a bit better here. The music starts to feel out of place as it doesn’t quite fit with the previous music, and then the additional vocals that are brought on in certain parts just pull you out of the experience that was truly enjoyable before. “Follow Me: Kill” still manages to work itself in the end, though, and despite my criticism, I can’t say that I found the shifts bad per say, but there’s certainly work that could’ve been done to make it an easier listening experience.

In the end, I can still happily say that Cripper did a bang up job with this album and it’s not hard to see why. Experimentation or changes don’t always have to be made to satisfy listeners or to prove a point, but either way, they definitely can work given a possible different train of thought. “Follow Me: Kill” is quite far from being called a great piece from me, but there’s definitely more to find in this record than one might expect.

“Follow Me: Kill!” releases on September 15th via Metal Blade Records!

PRE-ORDER “Follow Me: Kill” via iTunes here.

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