One of those bands that you come across suddenly, nestling amidst the deepest underground caverns of the Metal underworld, French Thrashers Outcast have produced a minor masterpiece. Walking a fine yet expertly balanced between Thrash, Groove, Tech-Death and Melodeath the band are excellent at forming tightly-woven songs that take the best elements from the likes of Meshuggah and Gojira but are resoundingly original about it. Take opening blast Autonomy In Progress as an example, opening with Tech-Death thrashings before melodic guitar solos start painting the walls red and a killer groove pops out of nowhere, leading you along with its blunt catchiness before even more solos start popping out of the wall and the song bludgeons its way to a close. Writing paragraphs about each track would take far too long, yet paragraphs they all deserve, from the Prog-fuelled diversity of Denial Of Elapsed Time through the groove of Reversal, complete with Jazz breakdown. The band have been in existence in one form or another since 1998 and they’ve clearly been using the time since well, as guitarists Nicolas (also of Proggy Death Metallers Symbyosis) and Jean-Francois especially do amazing things with their instruments.

If there’s a single weak point to the band, it’s vocalist Wilfried, who has a Jens Kidman-esque bellow that has practically no variety whatsoever. So good is the music, however, that you easily forgive them. The variety in style astonishes, really, even the more moshpit-friendly likes of Fragmented Memories and Allegiance with their chug-happy and easily headbangable riffs being diverse and very distinct tracks from the others. Of course, Gojira fans everywhere will be happy with the likes of Collapsed Into Oblivion, which frankly shits all over them, including more in a single song than the more famous band does in three.

Trying to sum this album up, the best adjective that I can reach for is that it’s simply Metal. The riffs, the solos, it all just works and if you got into this genre for the simple joys of having your neck obliterated by the skilful use of a guitar or two, then Outcast offer all this and more. We all need to strain those muscles now and then, and this band do it so damn well that their next album is high on my to-check list automatically. Like Hybrid, another band I featured who have sadly languished without comment from the forum hordes, Outcast deserve much more reward than they currently receive.