RETALIATORY MEASURES – Withdrawal Syndromes

Massacre Records – Out Now

The phenomenon of illegal downloading has put the whole of the music industry under pressure in recent times. Luckily, we still have labels wanting to promote new bands, such as Massacre Records, who have done this with the Finnish Death/Thrash Metal quintet Retaliatory Measures – a band that has founded by guitarist Kalle Hahtamo and vocalist Pessi Haltsonen only three years ago and who are unleashing their first musical offspring “Withdrawal Syndromes” onto the music world.

Retaliatory Measures are described by Massacre Records as a Thrash Metal band, but one can easily appreciate the influence that Death Metal has played in the band’s musical upbringing – evidence of which is in these ten compositions. Guitars are low chorded and heavy, vocals are deep even for Chuck Billy’s (Testament) standards and apart from the typical/classic Thrash riffs that one ought to find there are moments where the guitars come across as much influenced by Metalcore as they are by bands like Bolt Thrower – interested?

This peaceful co-existence between elements of the Thrash & Death Metal scenes is clearly audible in the riff-based opening track “The Offering” and further manifests itself in the Metalcore chorus of the follow-up “Withdrawal”. Though not particularly innovative, these five lads understand really well the concept of a decent riff, ensuring that compositions like the pretty straight-forward “Decompose”, the latter-day Destruction influenced “Revulse” and the metalcore-y duet “Threshold”/”Killing” are quite entertaining offerings.

Songs that do stand out are the groovy sounding duet “Pharynx”/”Soap”, the second of which incorporates an impressive acoustic guitar break, the head banging opus “Existence”, as well as the six minute closing track “Since Nothing” – thematically varied enough to perhaps give us a glimpse of the band’s plans for their musical future.

Retaliatory Measures are a group of young musicians who obviously have many things more to learn both in terms of individual and collective skills, but “Withdrawal Syndromes” clearly proves that the solid foundations required to achieve the next step are already in place.

This ten track album may not be a musically innovative release but it is quite an entertaining one so if you like your Metal simple, your riffs heavy and your choruses melodic then this album is definitely for you.

John Stefanis

Rating: ***1/2 (3.5/5.0)

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Power Plays w/c 9 December 2024

In this sequence we play ‘The Best of 2024′ GRTR! reviewer selections

Featured Albums w/c 9 December 2024

09:00-12:00 The Best of 2024 (Melodic Rock)
12:00-13:00 The Best of 2003-2024 (Melodic Hard Rock)
14:00-16:00 The Best of 2024 (Singer Songwriter)