By Melissa Andrews

I really enjoy when a bands play fast to sound heavy and thrashy but still have enough musicality that the songs still sound like music and not just playing fast to show how uber quick their guitar or drum playing is. The very recently released Arsis album, Starve for the Devil manages to fast and provide guitar parts that are memorable. The vocals are good and growley sounding but listening closely the words are almost understandable.

Right from the first song on the album “Forced to Rock” the guitar playing is impressive. Every single song on the album has at least one guitar riff that is something you want to listen to again. Some of the guitar solos I found a bit disappointing but those usually were short.

The band recently finished a North American tour opening for Arch Enemy, another show that I’m rather disappointed I missed. There’s a terrific review of the Toronto date on Hellbound by Ola Mazzuca, which you can read here.

(Nuclear Blast USA)

7.5