Terminalist - The Crisis as Condition (2023)^{Release ID: 47570}

Self-confessed ‘hyperthrashers’, Terminalist have gone all out socio-political on album number two. The Danish/Americans have ditched the more sci-fi based tunes from their debut with a grim and scathing commentary on the bleaker elements of modern real-life. Sounds like a write-up for a DSBM band, right? Should be expecting dull and sad tracks that fester in their own misery, right? Well, not as it happens.

The sophomore from Terminalist relies on more than descriptive passages about the hopelessness of life here, now, and in the future. Riddled with technical 80’s thrash metal references, The Crisis as Condition is entertaining and endearing once you engage with it. Despite not having much in the way of positivity present in its themes, there are some reasonably bright sounding moments within the track listing. For all the speed on show, none of this is at the sacrifice of accessibility.

In their more frantic moments, Terminalist are a consistent machine that churns frenetic thrash metal that never quite hits the technical prowess of Coroner or the progressive complexity of Vektor. In their more structured tracks, they are still perfectly capable of adding expansion and depth to songs, all done with an efficient if not all that remarkable level of musicianship.

In terms of scoring, there are simply not enough standout moments on this record to warrant it receiving many revisits after a couple of listens. Therefore, I find myself giving it a middle of the road score when I was initially thinking this may be a lot more special than it eventually turned out to be. It is solid enough but gets a little lost in its own consistency to really make any waves. The nuances are there (the closing track clocks in at over ten-minutes and does offer more in the way of variation across its runtime) but are too infrequent to have much lasting impact.