Exesion
Promise Waste And Rot
6.9
The Innerstrength Records debut from Evansville, Indiana sextet Exesion, is a very modern-sounding death/thrash album from a band that has the potential to make a wave or three, in time. It’s slightly frustrating because this is far from mediocre for a debut, and to my ear, it's like a flawed hidden treasure. There’s this weird Soilent Green inclination (“Beds Whores”), with a beefed-up newer Testament/highly aggressive God Forbid vibe; thrashy, yet nothing too vintage, with many roundabout ways of forming breakdowns, etc. Sometimes the riffs and precision bass drums are inseparable (“Conundrum”) , the solos are infrequent, the grooves are generally slower and grind hard, blasting is kept to a minimum, and the majority of the vocals are of the rip n’ roar variety. Keys, when pushed to the forefront, are thankfully quite well-blended, and don’t stick out like a rotted thumb.
Still, these songs sound too familiar within just a couple listens, almost like a book you read once or twice and enjoy, but never read again, or a great movie you might not want to pay full price to see twice. I'm in no rush to come back to it. Exesion is a good group who have a firm understanding of dynamic songwriting, but I’d like to hear them do more with it. In short, Promise Waste and Rot is a moderately impressive newer death metal tryout from a young Midwest band who already know how to play the game very well, and will probably be showing off a few cool new moves in the near future once they get a little more road rash. Keep an eye on ‘em.
