Friday March 29th 2024

The River Neva – “Chemistry Of Holocaust”

theriverneva

The River Neva – “Chemistry Of Holocaust”

 

Last week TNB ran into the great Worcester-based band, The River Neva, at Ralph’s Diner, where they were headlining an awesome lineup of metal bands and releasing their new EP called “Chemistry of Holocaust”. The show was amazing and TNB’s review will be forthcoming, but today I’d like to talk a little bit about their EP, so put on your favorite gas mask and enjoy the ride.

The River Neva band members are Grizz Gagnon and Chris Abbott on guitars, Erik Zarazinski on drums, Jake O’Connor on bass and Trey Holton on vocals. Their sound is a blend of progressive metal mixed with thrashy death metalcore. They incorporate aggressive growling vocals with clean choruses and mix quick blast beats and chugging thrash riffs with progressive melodic runs. Their musicianship is in obvious abundance, rendering every tune into a meandering masterpiece of multi-textured sound. And their EP’s sound production quality captures all the immediacy and excitement embodied in their great live performances. Let’s check out a couple of my favorite tunes from “Chemistry of Holocaust”.

The first tune, called “Night of the Long Knives”, breaks through the silence like a sledge hammer hitting concrete. Starting out with a herky-jerky staccato drum beat accompanied by equally syncopated sharp guitar riffs. You’d better duck, ’cause here come the long knives. The intro steadily builds into a frenzy that gives way to awesome growling vocals co-joined by haunting clean retorts. With lyrics seemingly steeped in the mysterious embattled toils of far away times, I’m reminded of another eclectic story teller from a great Canadian band that must certainly reign as the fathers of progressive metal. His name, of course, is Neil Peart. Trey does an awesome job matching the texture of his growls and screeches to the urgency required by the tune. Nice guitar solo. Great tune. Check it out.

[audio:https://www.thrashnbang.com/wp-content/music/01-Night of the Long Knives.mp3|titles=Night of the Long Knives]

The fourth track on the EP is called, “Burn the Note to Jesus”. It starts out with a cool guitar run that periodically repeats throughout the tune sounding like something out of ancient Mesopotamia. A song about faith and choice (the story of life, indeed), yields a racing beat with a haunting chorus breakdown in the middle. The guitar work is amazing. It’s truly never a dull moment with the boys from The River Neva. Just wait a few seconds and new twists and turns are around every corner. Crank it up.

[audio:https://www.thrashnbang.com/wp-content/music/04-Burn the note to Jesus.mp3|titles=Burn the note to Jesus]

As I remove my gas mask to check if the air has finally cleared, I can’t help lending a random thought towards mankind’s undeniable delusional propensity for violence and random acts of destruction. Unfortunately innate in all of us, stumbling upon the cure is like finding a diamond in the ruff. The smart folks simply grab their favorite set of earphones, download an awesome CD, like “Chemistry of Holocaust” and crank it up to eleven. By the time the session is over, your demeanor will certainly be well adjusted (not to mention, you may lose a few pounds). An indubitably long winded way of saying, “Chemistry of Holocaust” is a totally sick EP and The River Neva is a very cool band. Be sure to check out both.

 

(Andy Bang)

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