Loudblast - Fragments
XIII bis
Thrash Death Metal
12 songs (47'59)
Release year: 1998
Loudblast, XIII bis
Reviewed by Jack
Archive review

Fragments is the album Loudblast released in 1998 just before they decided to disband and it should have thus remained their latest testimony. Fortunately for us, the band decided to join forces again and just came up with a brand new album, Planet Pandemonium. In my review of their latest album, I said Fragments was a little bit of a deception for me, especially after the release of their mini-CD Cross The Threshold.

Fragments is not a bad album or an average album, it is definitely an above average thrash death metal album, but I prefer Planet Pandemonium and Sublime Dementia. Fragments was a return to a more thrash metal rather than the death metal style on their two previous releases. It contains some great songs such as Flesh, Into The Keep, Labyrinth,Worthy Of Angel and I Against I with some great riffs as usual, but the groovy elements that was XXX on their previous mini-CD is not present on this album, and thus came my greatest disappointment with that album. Whereas on some tracks the groovy side is slightly XXX proposed like on Frozen Tears, they didn't reiterate it here as much as they did with No Tears To Share or Cross The Threshold. Besides, the album tends to become too monotonous as you get into the second half of it. Moreover, the guitar work on this album is a bit below average from their previous albums, and Planet Pandemonium is definitely better and more guitar oriented. Although the music remains very heavy, it is not as complex as it was on their earlier material, but it is still a very solid work of melodic, well played technical pieces of death metal with great musicianship. The album was recorded at Impulse Studios and got mixed again by Colin Richardson which makes the sound closer to Cross The Threshold, but this one sounds different than its predecessor, with a more direct, more "in your face" kind of production.

The album features a really nice looking artwork, The Black Aria, done again by French artist Bolek Budzyn. For those of you who like dealing with lyrics, the band continues to focus on that really interesting matter, sex, as depicted on the artwork and on Cross The Threshold. If you just discover the band and you like either the new album or their previous album, there's no doubt that you will enjoy Fragments as much as the others, since you're objectivity might not be as biased as mine.

Killing Songs :
Flesh, Into The Keep, Labyrinth,Worthy Of Angel, I Against I
Jack quoted 80 / 100
Other albums by Loudblast that we have reviewed:
Loudblast - Planet Pandemonium reviewed by Jack and quoted 90 / 100
Loudblast - Cross The Threshold reviewed by Jack and quoted no quote
Loudblast - Sublime Dementia reviewed by Jack and quoted 95 / 100
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