Fear My Thoughts

Vulcannus (Century Media)
by Martin Popoff

This gleefully metal-mad German act, now onto their fourth album and first for Century Media, might loosely be called metalcore, but man, the vibe here is just so white-knuckle fast and Swedish death catchy that you find yourself quickly chucking all the trend-laden superlatives out the window. Leaning it heavy is the deathcore vocal from Mathias Ockl, and then throwing additional shapes, you’ve got percolating keyboard additions from Kim Oelsen of Anubis Gates, and an Opeth-like track in “Culture of Fear,” with “Stamp of Credence” perhaps being both Opeth-like and hardcore, a potent, less derivative combination. Hate the band name, though, and the overall feel is one of almost comically locked-down, impossibly speedy ProTooled perfection. But man, Fear My Thoughts pack and compact a pile of forceful, punishing Machine Head-esque riffing into each of these diamond-blinding constructs. There’s so much here going on, and one’s gotta project the fact that they’re German, adding a bit of otherworldliness to a music that’s been largely hi-jacked by Americans, as having something to do with the five to ten percent bit of distinction to the thing.
(www.centurymedia.com)