Time Signature You are, therefore you die...

Genre: black ...

The Norwegian kvlt black-thrash duo Cobolt 60 are back with an onslaught of evil music.

I think that this album, although the band is branded as a thrash band, leans much more towards black metal than thrash metal in that there is an abundance of black metal elements in terms of both drumming style and the guitar playing, much of which features tremolo picking and dissonant chords. Thus, for instance, the first two tracks 'The Grim Defiance' and 'Of Antipathy and Solitude' strike me as gravitating primarily towards black metal, while 'Hammer the Creationist' is an all out thrash attack, featuring some pretty solid and razor sharp aggressive riffage. 'The Return of Theia' leans towards black metal again, but features some pretty cool almost punky riffage, while 'Sort' is an all out brutal black metal blastbeat attack. 'Radiant Animosity Towards the Flesh' combines old school thrash madness with black metal misanthropy, while 'Beinkald' is another blastbeat attack (which does feature some heavier and almost groovy passages), and 'You Are, Therefore You Die!' is primarily a heavier affair with some blastbeat-sections every now and then.

While, to my ears, primarily a black metal album, "The Grim Defiance" is characterized by a pretty good production with none of the lo-fi noise in sight that many black metal bands tend to opt for. Also, the bass is nicely audible, which I like.

If you are looking for black metal with a brutal edge and a production which is actually listener-friendly, then "The Grim Defiance" should make you one very happy and very evil metalhead.