Review: Total Retaliation – Terror

I must admit that I didn’t expect it, but this new album by the well-known Californian hardcore band is really pleasant! We are not talking about their best record of course, also because reaching the levels of milestones of the genre as “One with the underdogs” is a real utopia, but certainly “Total retaliation” is far better than the two previous sluggish albums. The formula is more or less the same: fast parts alternated with 2 steps and very violent break-downs (I said break-downs, NOT the stuff that fashionable bands did a few years ago!), but the songwriting is much better than that of the recent past, and tracks like “One more enemy” or the singles “Resistant to the changes” and “Spirit of sacrifice” are real anthems that we will certainly sing at the top of our lungs when they come back (I hope soon!) to play in our country. The lyrics, as usual, are suspended between illusion and disillusionment, between the difficulties we face every day and the desire to overcome them with tenacity and grit, the same grit and energy we can find the tracks that Terror have been playing with passion for almost twenty years. Veterans but with freshness, go on like this!

Rating: 8/10

Reviewed by Riccardo Santi

Translation by Elvira Cuomo