Vortex is a real sounding Bay Area thrash band based in Durham in the North East of England. These two demo’s totalling seven tracks is a good start to hopefully a successful career in the thrash arena.
Hitting the decks with their first musical endeavour is ‘Mechanical Dismemberment’. As I listen to this, I am drawn to comparisons with those other UK thrash greats Mutant; they have a similar feel but have a different lyrical take…obviously. ‘Warspeed’ blows your senses to pieces, the music is fast, furious, similar to some Morbid Saint I would say. The magic does not stop here either, ‘Melancholia’ and its resultant riffing is like some of the genre greats in terms of the guitar work and this is the key to this bands quality it bears no resemblance to boredom or tedium. In some cases, Vortex pick up the pace in their music so much they verge into melodic death metal territory, songs come across as groovy and infectious with their own dark stance on proceedings, especially from Elton’s vocals. Vortex have much a-do about melody, especially guitar harmonies, this is always a soft spot for me, the rulebook makes easy reading the way these said harmonies are crafted to bring a warm feeling to my mind, taking me back to long lost creations of my own youth. The second demo shows rather a lot of progress in terms of arrangement and song writing development in general whilst in possession of bruising tunes like ‘Rancid Manifestation’ and ‘Spiritual Waste’ and once I am finished with this second demo, bear in mind the development I have already heard, I cannot help feel excited and hopeful that there is so much more to come from this band.
All in all, Vortex has good ideas and good tracks, the demo recording quality is not that great, but this is most likely their first attempt in the studio to be fair. Vortex adds a further quality control label to the UK thrash scene, for which I honestly thought was beginning to run its course in recent times with the amount of also-ran’s appearing out of nowhere. Filled with more riffs and hooks than you can shake a stick at, Vortex are worthy of your attention and are that breath of fresh air needed to restore your faith and bash the trend following, fair weather thrash fans to smithereens!
http://www.myspace.com/vortexthrashbanduk
Paul Maddison
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