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CRISIX
Against The Odds

Listenable (2018)
Rating: 6/10

I’m on the fence with Against The Odds, the new record from Spanish thrashers Crisix. To be fair it starts strong with ‘Get Out Of My Head’, but it’s their choice of song material, overall, that throws me. ‘The North Remembers’, for example, is inspired by Game Of Thrones, while ‘Xenomorph Blood’ is a tribute to the movie Alien and ‘Prince Of Saiyans’ is an ode to the Japanese manga and anime series Dragon Ball. It all just feels very high school to me.

Other songs like ‘Technophiliac’ deal with our over reliance on technology, while ‘Leech Breeder’ addresses people in power lording over the powerless. So, song-wise, there’s a weird disconnect with that which is somewhat serious versus the pop culture stuff which seems trite and frivolous.

Two things come to mind. One, the choice of songs and lyrical material is questionable at best. Two, because the music is so powerful, so on mark, you tend to connect more with the music and not the songs, and as a result the music overshadows everything. And then there’s this strange meandering into hardcore territory that, although it sounds good, it seems out of place. It’s this lack of cohesion that puts me on the fence – the music’s good but the songs are, well, not where they should be.

If you’re strictly into music and don’t care about songs, or song lyrics, you’ll enjoy this record. And live I’m sure these boys throw down hard, no doubt about that. Crisix is a band that’s on the same level, musically, as the likes of Warbringer, Havok and Death Angel, but that’s where the comparison ends, unfortunately.

Remember I mentioned the hardcore thing earlier? Its two songs – ‘Perserverance’ and ‘Cut The Shit’. The first song, ‘Perserverance’, is so straight up Hatebreed I wouldn’t be surprised if Jamey Jasta is looking for a royalty check in his mailbox as we speak. And ‘Cut The Shit’ sounds like Sick Of It All, or Madball, trying to lay down thrash. This isn’t a bad thing, but just out of step with the record as a whole.

It brings into question where this band’s identity is, where it lies? Nuclear Assault had this type of thing down to an art by mixing punk and hardcore seamlessly, while Crisix comes across looking for that balance. So I don’t see this band at Nuclear Assault’s level just yet when it comes to this stylistic fusion of sound. I know it sounds like that I’m hating this record, but really I don’t… it just caught me off guard.

Crisix has the obvious skills to pay the metal bills, but the choice of song material and their oddball dance with hardcore leaves me disconnected. And for that, I’m half battle vest in and half battle vest out. Musically it’s a monster, but song-wise it’s all over the place.

If you want a more refined version of Crisix, then check out Finland’s Lost Society, does that make sense? But buy Against The Odds, because this band deserves it. I believe that given a few years and a few more records from now you’ll be dealing with a beast of such musical refinement they might just be the next Megadeth or Metallica. But right now they’re kind of all over the place, musically.

Theron Moore

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