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METHANE
Kill It With Fire

Self-released (2023)
Rating: 8.5/10

Providing a thrashing, groove-based bridge between Sweden and the US, four-piece act Methane sends out a second missile in order to nuke the landscape with its scorching, driving riffs and aggressive, barked vocals.

This is very much modern metal, although you’ll also get flashes of Pantera, Exodus, Metallica and Fear Factory. The combination is at times lethal and belligerent, and this is evident from the off as the title track puffs and pants like an armoured dragon torching the horizons with huge blasts of nostril fire.

You can’t ignore the sharpness of the riffs on this opus, while solos on a track such as ‘Accuser (Of The Brethren)’ literally steamroll. And yet through all the hostility there are some extremely catchy and melodic streaks throughout this concise and tidy release.

In a sense, I get a very contemporary thrash feel with Methane. Although influences are worn on their sleeve everything about this album feels very “now”. At their most vicious you get battered by tracks such as ‘A Blood Red Sky’, which features Blood Feast guitarist C.J. Scioscia. But within those metallic walls of fury there are some fantastic mid-paced and well-measured grooves, whereas with tracks like ‘Shock And Awe’ it’s pretty much full throttle of the highest order as vocalist Tim Scott (ex-Revenant) booms “bombs away, bombs away” like one final warning before total devastation.

‘Down In The Gutter’ is a hefty, muscular and confrontation groove metal monolith where Scott’s vocals take on a far more menacing tone. However, you can pluck any track from this 31-minute molten melting pot and you’ll be rewarded – and heavily scarred – by its combative barks.

Kill It With Fire is another fantastic album to rip us a new one into the New Year. Forget the resurgence of Metallica and get on the Methane instead.

Neil Arnold

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