F.O.A.D. - Birth of Extinction

F.O.A.D. - Birth of Extinction (DEFENSE Records / MYTHRONE CD 2016)

I don't really follow what's going on in the thrash metal scene and to be honest I don't care about old bands' new albums or even worse, about new bands and their useless releases. I just think that most of the thrash sound boring these days and this style of metal is not able to offer me what I want to hear. So, I don't buy thrash bands, I listen to it very randomly and mostly just some old records. This is why I would not bother to check bands like F.O.A.D. and normally I would not give a listen to their CD if I didn't get it for review. Would I miss anything or have this feeling of my life being emptier without it? I doubt. Because "Birth of Extinction" is just generic and rather uninspiring thrash, which hardly is able to impress me. It does have some good moments, especially the first part of "Birth of Extinction" is not bad at all, but I cannot feel much passionate about such playing. I gave quite many listens to this album, I wanted to get into it fully... but I failed, it goes in one ear and out the other, quickly and painlessly.  

But let's start from the beginning. The band is located in Västerås, Sweden. This country spawned many fantastic death or black metal bands, but thrash? Fuck, not so many I guess. I love Hypnosia, they were bloody amazing band. Anything else? Nothing I remember. "Birth of Extinction" is F.O.A.D.'s debut album – and it compiles seven tracks plus their entire 2014 demo "Demo-Nical".  

Definitely the main part of "Birth of Extinction" is more interesting and also diverse, because here and there F.O.A.D. steps away from the characteristic thrash patterns to deliver something different. And that's good, so there are some not bad songs for sure, like "Avoid the Smell of Semen", which is nicely fast and aggressive tune. "Legion of the Dead" is also noteworthy, I like its chorus, with great clean vocals parts in it and again a lot of nice, vicious riffs. My fave though is the slowest and most obscure and dark sounding song here, "Doomed Rebirth of Christ". Its atmosphere is almost sick and eerie as hell, I like it a lot, especially that the riffs are more doomy slow than thrash fast. This track is surely a highlight and a nice surprise on the album and it's quite cool that it appears in two versions, as it was also a part of "Demo-Nical" demo, which is included to the album as a bonus. On the other hand I cannot say that I liked songs like the crusty "Deathcamp VIII", with weak vocals and forgettable music or really mediocre "Holiday in Armenia".  

So, "Birth of Extinction" is not one of those albums, which would keep you fascinated for the whole duration. There are better and worse songs, some I can easily skip, when I play the CD. Some of you will like the fact that "Birth of Extinction" contains "Demo-Nical" demo 2014 as a bonus, I am not really bothered about it, especially because out of three songs from the demo one is really weak and the other two have been re-recorded for "Birth of Extinction". So I assume that "Demo-Nical" has been featured to get longer album than to bring you more killer material. I don't care though... I gave it all enough listens and I'm afraid I won't be coming back to this album that often. 

Standout tracks: "Doomed Rebirth of Christ" 

Final rate: 60/100