Review by Greg on July 15, 2024.

One thing immediately out of the way: I'm sick of people treating melodic thrash bands in the same manner as metalcore. It's... just not the same thing. More often than not, it just means adding a good dose of melody to the basic fundamentals of the genre, and while the vocals are usually the main culprit for leaning a bit too much towards the commercial side, well, if thrash with clean vocals was enough to qualify, we could just start calling Anthrax a metalcore band, right?

Got it? Awesome, because Aussie melodic thrashers Envenomed are ready to shit on all my arguments, right out of the gate with their debut s/t EP (2009), offering four rather bulky tracks (none shorter than 5 minutes, and one nearing 7) full of material and stuff, but mostly having a distinct (and worrying) lack of thrash in common. You can even believe me when I say I tried my damn hardest to avoid a Bullet for My Valentine comparison for fear of excessive banality, yet the more I listened to Anthony Mavrikis' voice, the more I struggled not to picture Matt Tuck in my head. Worried now? You should, but not too much.

Yes, because there are also a lot of good things to say about Envenomed's sound. The first, and most obvious, is the leadwork, which will remain the band's most valuable asset on all subsequent releases, and it's clearly nice to hear such elaborate arrangements by what was still a beginner band. Sure, this is the only release where future shredder Brendan Farrugia doesn't play, so I was expecting less refined, more amateurish solos, and while at first sight that's partly true, axeman Sean Blanchard does a more than commendable job on his only studio appearance with the band, as most solos are close to their definitive version (which would see the light with 2016's Reckoning EP). There's clearly a lot of work behind them, with especially opener 'Failure to Falter' delivering a truly stellar sequence, and I can't stress enough how much I loved the scarcely 10-second long intro snippet on 'Rages War Within', which was clearly conceived to mean serious business as it's probably the only song qualifying as thrash more than anything. I also like the production, with a well audible bass, crunchy guitars, vocals mixed not too loudly, I can't find anything to nitpick about.

Except for, well, the songs themselves. With such a substantial average length, it's hard not to feel blue-balled in some instances, like the sluggish average tempo of 'Slave No More', after a rather promising intro. With the above-mentioned exception of 'Rages War Within', indeed, there's hardly anything that could be classified as fast-paced. Last song 'In Sanity's Stead' is another disappointing number, plodding for the most part, yet without much to say on the vocal department, as well as timidly and inoffensively accelerating every now and then (the uninspiring riff at 4:20 is an egregious example). 'Failure to Falter' lies somewhere in the middle, with its vaguely catchy vocal lines, although Mav isn't still as convincing as it would be later on.

Envenomed's first release is no doubt a strange one, and while the sometimes overbearing softness doesn't irk me as much as it should, I still think I'll rarely give it a spin again, especially after Reckoning rendered it basically obsolete. Only for completionists.

Rating: 5.5 out of 10