Lost Society is back with a new album!
Formed in 2010 in Finland, the band used to play Thrash before recently moving to a more modern style. Today, Samy Elbanna (vocals/guitar, Red Wolf), Mirko Lehtinen (bass, Forsythia), Arttu Lesonen (guitar, Raster Density) and Tapani Fagerström (drums, ex-Santa Cruz) announce the release of their fifth album, If The Sky Came Down, through their longtime label, Nuclear Blast.
The album immediately begins with the energetic and catchy 112 which offers us a very catchy mix for their Metalcore/Groove Metal influences supported by those motivating clean vocals and some more lively screams, but also melodious leads like on What Have I Done and its mysterious harmonics. The track is perfectly shaped for the stage, sometimes leaving one of the two guitars aside to let the rhythmic duo offer a heavy and motivating sound with Nu Metal roots before (We Are The) Braindead somehow reminds us of a numerous combo from Iowa whose efficiency is no longer to be proven. We’ll find some samples before musicians totally unleash themselves, just like on Stitches and its jerky riffs. We feel some melancholic energy in choruses while verses are made of pure energy just like the massive break which drives to the last part and then to Awake and its sweet introduction. But quietness doesn’t last, and the simple but impressive riffs mixes with samples, interspersed with powerful vocal parts, then the band goes back to its fast and jerky riffs on Underneath. The track skillfully blends raw rage, worked sounds and strong vocals before letting mysterious sounds introduce Creature, a darker and slower track. The difference between the chorus and the verses is explosive, letting haunting calmness meet heavy elements before melancholy meets modernity on Hurt Me, a very effective and heady track. The sound allows the combo’s infinite energy to slow down a bit, but the break hits soon before a final fierce chorus which guides us to If The Sky Came Down, the eponymous track, which slightly revisits the 90s Groove influences tinged with Thrash. The federative chorus was literally built for live shows, and it allows intensity to drop for Suffocating, the last track, which leaves the vocalist alone with a keyboard and some samples to close the album.
Lost Society hasn’t lost its fury and rage at all. The sound may have changed, undoubtedly drawing from the American 90s Nu Metal scene, but it makes If The Sky Came Down an album to make crowds move live.
80/100