Review by Adam M on January 25, 2019.

Flotsam and Jetsam bring huge riff work to the table on their newest full length The End of Chaos. This is music that has some melody, but it is overtaken by the urgency to craft pummeling music. The songs here display a great usage of the guitar riff and make for thrash metal that has enough charisma to be entertaining.

Compared to the classics, this album seems to have a similar impact as an album like Master of Puppets, but there is a more traditional metal focus to be found here. The songs have that gleaming display of metal might that might arise from the traditional metal genre, combined with the weight of thrash to craft a wholly different and worthy metal experience. There is an urgency to these songs that is welcome to behold and gives them an impactful focus. The carnage continues for the whole album as the band manages to keep up the pace quite well. Still, compared to some thrash like the recent Heathen album, The Evolution of Chaos, this still comes up a bit short. It just seems a bit too standard sounding with not enough originality thrown in for good measure. Still, within the narrow confines of their song-writing, there are a number of catchy moments that emerge from the mix to give the album character. If they could manage to make their music more progressive this would be even more interesting than it already is.

Still, there has been nothing like this released so far this year and for old school metal fans this is enough of a gem to be worthy to digest. The focus on making music that is classic sounding still has some appeal because of the lack of albums that try to do so these days. This is a nice slice of the past put into modern focus.  It also must be said that The End of Chaos is an album that improves upon further listens.

Rating: 7.6 out of 10