I Spit Ashes
Inhaling Darkness - Reflecting Light

I Spit Ashes, what kind of statement is that? are you a volcano? That is what German band I Spit Ashes call themselves (obviously), and they are inhaling blackness and reflecting light. How do you inhale blackness? that is a question that has lingered in my mind for many years and I am sorry to say that this album does not really reveal how you do it either. What it does is carry a lovely looking album cover that is both futuristic and sexy but then again if you are selling yourself as Metal 2.0 you have to do something graphically forwardsthinking which is what Jan Yrlund the special Massacre cover artist did for this album cover. But what is Metal 2.0? Is it the remake of Die Hard 2?

The answer is no, to the second question that is. Another genre you can read of with this band is Modern Thrash Metal and that feels like a good description as it is a sense of thrash metal with a nice, powerful modern production you are hearing when listening to the album. But there is more with several layers and many atypical parts where the music changes tempo, even a piano piece is snuck into the album but the overall feel is still that of a thrash metal album. Not really the contrasts between beauty and disaster as I was led to believe when looking at the artwork which is a masterpiece in itself, it is rather quite undynamic despite many layers of musical stylings that are incorporated. I would not really call this Metal 2.0 unless of course Metal 1.0 was Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath in the late sixties early seventies and since then no new metal ideas has ever been shown upon the world. We all know how that thesis holds up, don’t we? It is nothing really new, it could have been if done slightly differently but it isn’t.

This album comes with sales talk 2.0 though stating how awfully brilliant the band is live, that you just cannot miss it. How they renew the metal while still remaining true to the roots, all sorts of exciting talk. So they can talk the talk but when listening to the album you get the sense that they don’t really walk the walk. It is good though, but all in all it makes no real impression and the only time you are really being caught attentionwise is when the sixth track One Star per Tear goes in with its instrumental piano tune, it is a lovely track and the best one on the album, by far. The thing is: they should have more stuff like this creating more massive contrasts while still retaining a coherent sense to an album, that is something really difficult but if they are to succeed, and as the elements are there you have to believe that they could do it, it would mean that they will take it to another level.

I sort of hoped this new Metal 2.0 would be a sort of musical portrait of Dorian Grey, with that great surface in the guy never ageing or being affected by his actions with the hidden portrait becoming uglier and uglier and older. If they could pull off that kind of thing making sort of lovely modern, almost synthpoppish and piano driven music with bursts of evil thrashiness they could really amaze the metal crowds. Now though they take the safe route and having the rather ordinary thrash metal take the lead just makes this album a good one which feels rather insignificant in the big pile of other thrash metal albums out there. But if you listen carefully, you will hear parts of what I want it to be but in the end it feels more like a case of what could have been rather than something I take to heart. One Star per Tear is worthy of another mention though, the piano melody is just terrific.

So in the end it is an album that shows glimpses of bringing the genre to that 2.0 level but in general it still remains somewhere on the 1.X-level as the only thing that feels really like it takes things to another level is the aggressive sales pitch which speaks of true emotion and creating new things while still keeping in touch with the roots and all of that. It isn’t really that which they say but nevertheless it is a decent thrash metal album that has some really fascinating and good parts amongst all the thrashing.

HHHHHHH