Review by Vladimir on August 1, 2024.

I believe that the band Flotsam And Jetsam needs no introduction to anyone who is well familiar with 80's thrash metal or perhaps a diehard fan, especially since we're talking about a band that is highly regarded for their excellent musicality that's been coming with the package since their early days. Being around for over 4 decades, they sure as hell do their best job at keeping their game as strong as always, and now come the year 2024, they are returning with their sixteenth full-length album I Am The Weapon on September 13th, which will be released via AFM Records. The big question is: is this album a great testament to their 40-year legacy as a band? Stay tuned to find out...

Flotsam And Jetsam has always been persistent in delivering energetic and powerful songs that play around with various ideas, ranging from standard thrash metal headbanging to melodic performance with a predominant power metal vibe. The songs on I Am The Weapon truly have a sense of expressive delivery that nicely morphs into borderline heavy metal anthems, with a couple of solid examples such as 'Primal', 'Burned My Bridges' and 'Cold Steel Lights' that go for an epic approach in power/speed metal fashion, but you also have some surprisingly catchy rock and roll moments like 'Beneath The Shadows'. All the way through it's an action-packed adventure that keeps an even flow of entertainment, rocking out from start to finish with high intensity and ambitious firepower, never slowing down or losing their edge. Probably the strongest track of the bunch is 'Black Wings', a fantastic song that truly raises the bar even higher, while also successfully taking you to another place where you see the great events unfold before you reach the conclusion to this fiery adventure. This track in particular really embodies the meaning of "grand finale", because once you reach this point you truly feel like you are witnessing the major climax of the album that will put this chapter to an end with a nice payoff.

As I said before, the band plays around with various ideas in their songwriting, combining heaviness, thrashiness, and melody, with plenty of dynamics all around that keep things interesting and smooth. Even though the output of Flotsam And Jetsam has become quite modern over the past few years, this time going even further from their intense thrash metal days in the 80s that we all know and love the most, the album still manages to showcase how the band has shaped and matured with their songwriting throughout 3-4 decades, without there being an instance of pleasing the wider audience just for the sake of better publicity. Although the final result might not be everyone's cup of tea, you can't deny the fact that it feels fresh and solid from start to finish, especially since their overall direction on I Am The Weapon was open with expressing variety that further broadens their musical horizon. The only thing that really didn't flow with me is the artwork by Andy Pilkington, who has done a very good job on their previous releases from their self-titled album in 2016 to Blood In The Water in 2021, although this time the album cover looks way too artificial and I think it's due to the general issue of people getting used to seeing AI generated album covers that are in this overly polished 3D style with no life whatsoever. The overall visual representation looks fine, but the art style just doesn't flow with me at all, and I feel very sorry to say so because a band such as Flotsam And Jetsam can really do better than this. Luckily, it doesn't ruin the album as a whole, and it still manages to capture the general feeling you get from it.

Personally, I think that I Am the Weapon is worth checking out if you are a very diehard fan of Flotsam And Jetsam because it still manages to deliver a fairly solid performance all the way through. I guess it's safe to say that the band is still going strong after 4 decades of existence, and I think that this album encapsulates their acquired experience throughout all these years in the world of heavy metal music.

Rating: 8 out of 10