Single Review: Victim of Circumstance

Following on from last year’s Good Luck… You’re Gonna Need It EP, Eurenza are back with their next single. As with the EP, this is naïve thrash from the early days of the genre, with this being even more closely linked to the original NWOBHM scene. It commences with some shredding right at the beginning, leading eventually into the song itself, and while last time I felt it was a combination of Exodus and Metallica, this comes across more as Testament with Kreator with some Raven for good measure. However, although this is thrash, it feels way too much at one level, and some of that is down to the production, which does not carry enough depth and bottom end. Everything is based around the guitars, not enough importance is given to the bass, while the drums are very one-dimensional with much of the kick drum work being lost altogether. I would have liked to have heard more thought going into the arrangement, as this needs a strong and dynamic driving foundation in the rhythm section and here we just don’t have that.

Thrash is an exciting genre, and I can remember the birth of it very clearly indeed, yet this is just too one-dimensional to give it the gravitas and power it needs. I get the impression that this will work much better onstage than it does in the recorded version, a problem not uncommon with metal bands, as what I found is the more I played it, the less I enjoyed it. That it is highly polished is never in doubt, nor is the fact that Aidan Courtnell and Dan Caleno have a very strong playing relationship, and Dan has a great voice for this style of music. I do hope I can catch the guys at a gig in the future as I am sure that will provide a much better picture, but while I know there will be many metalheads who will love this, I am not really one of them.