Having paid close and intimate witness to Power Trip live and in the flesh, it’s with a heavy heart that we have to report the accelerant-burning, unrestrained fury the Dallas quartet exude live is absent from their debut full-length.
The production job is straight out of the 80s, inspired by such regrettable-sounding, white-hot messes like Atrophy’s Socialized Hate and Nuclear Assault’s discography. Reverb-heavy drums and echoey vocals dominate, while guitar solos push everything back in the mix. Unfortunately, once you get past the feeling that you might be standing in a wind tunnel, the songwriting acumen that drove their previous EPs has also been halved.
Conditioned To Death and Power Trip can shred skin in the way of classic thrash, but there are too many instances of the band reverting to rudimentary chug riffs, simplistic two-beats and other features of historically uninspired, difficult second albums like Death Angel’s Frolic Through The Park and Whiplash’s Ticket To Mayhem.
