There is no compromising when it comes to attitude and intent within French metallers TankrusT, certainly creatively going by their new album The Fast Of Solace. The debut full-length from the Parisian bred quintet, it is a barbarous and dynamically textured onslaught of ears and senses, but one unafraid to weave a web of diversity and adventure within its merciless ferocity. It is also an encounter which impresses first time around but reveals its strongest assets over subsequent plays to grow into an even more stirring and heftily satisfying proposition. Whether The Fast Of Solace has enough uniqueness to set the metal world ablaze time will tell but certainly it is going to savage it until attention is strongly given the way of the band.
Formed towards the end of 2006 initially under the name Eleusis, TankrusT has drawn on its members varied backgrounds in varied extreme metal and hardcore for its sound, merging those essences with a death and thrash seeded roar of their own. As shown by The Fast Of Solace, it is a debilitating tempest with a wealth of invention and enterprise within its depths. Live the band has earned a potent name for themselves, the sharing of stages with bands such as M:Pire of Evil, Septicfelsh, and Debauchery adding to their own shows over the years, a success backed in 2013 by the release of the four-track Beyond Thresholds EP. It whipped up certain attention in their homeland and online but nothing to that expected to be ignited by The Fast Of Solace.
DMZ is the first mighty trespass from the album, the track looming in on a sonic swirl only gaining more impact and hostility as it nears and explodes into a volatile bellow of heavily swiping rhythms, rabid riffs, and a great mix of vocal confrontation driven by the ravenous tones of KooTôh. Spidery grooves are a just as swift enticement within the turbulence, the invention of lead and rhythm guitarists Garth and Will respectively, creating an increasingly magnetic web to get hooked up in.
It is a pungent and increasingly gripping start to the album matched in kind and hostility by Draw the Line. Instantly rugged with bruising rhythms from drummer Schuff leading the forage into the senses, the hardcore aspects in the band’s breeding come to the fore, vocals and a raw punk virulence entwining and festering within the death metal blossomed raging to magnetic effect. The track is superb, eclipsing the great opener with its own tirade of violent variety and fierce imagination before Apollo Is Dead throws it’s cantankerously abrasing animus into the persuasion ring. Vocally KooTôh, with presumable backing across the band, fluidly spreads vocal diversity as blackened as it is death bred or hardcore seeded, a blend matched by the groove veined metal enmity in its varied shades.
Autonomy steps forward with purpose and rancor next, intrusive beats and a rally of riffs its frontline before the great carnal tones of Jule’s bass offers a toxic flirtation and lead into a swinish vocal infesting of song and senses. That sparks a filth coated rock ‘n’ roll stroll with barbarous twists and cancerous turns to its resourceful persuasion but as expected by now, voice and sound always comes with evolving turbulence and invention, many familiar essences woven into a tempest as fresh to the ear as it is dramatically hostile.
Both Improvisation 28, with its raw bitterness and again expectations defeating landscape of invasive but seriously contagious ideation, and the creatively mercurial Dead Pools keep ears and appetite greedy whilst Barbarians is a feud on the senses. Unrelenting in its barbarity and similarly full on in imagination, the track is a weave of contrasting and adventurous textures and enterprise. Each only leave a want for more; something the hellacious Grow Some Balls can immediately satisfy with its hardcore honed stalking and violating of ears, adding another distinct twist to the character of the album at the same time.
Through the similarly honed and bad blooded rock ‘n’ roll of 10:22 and the enticingly uncomfortable yet enthralling soundscape of Cleaver, TankrusT ensures The Fast Of Solace departs as potently as its ferocious animosity was launched, and in the closing song with maybe the most imaginative incursion on the listener within the release.
It is fair to say that at times there is a surface familiarity and intensity which smothers the individuality of moments and tracks but the rewards for time spent digging deeper and close attention given are irresistible. The Fast Of Solace continues to impress and thrill with every listen suggesting at the same time that TankrusT has the qualities and imagination to make an even bigger impact ahead.
The Fast Of Solace is out now.
https://www.facebook.com/Tankrust http://www.tankrust.com/
Pete RingMaster 17/12/2015
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