Metakix - Connect and Inspire

Connect & Inspire, is Bombay based thrash metal band, Metakix’s second album, coming out in 2006, four years after their debut album. Though the band would be bear the thrash tag proudly, the album bears so much beyond and in between a thrash album that is hard to pin it concretely to the genre.

On many of the tracks the band prefers to adopt an 80’s hard rock sound, rather than an all out metal sound. Only The Good Die Young, could be compared to compositions from 80’s rockers Badlands, with the structure of the song hovering around the same area as that of the afore mentioned band.

The band avoids playing at breakneck speeds and prefers playing at a comfortable tempo, with a larger emphasis on the feel of the song. True Alter is a good example of the point mentioned above, where the speed of the song is drenched out and replaced with a slow yet beguiling riff. One thing is undeniable that the band is technically very sound. This becomes easily visible on the bluesy number Pay Day Blues, which features some nifty work from the band’s lead guitarist Viresh.

The guys certainly do not shy away from expressing their eastern influences, both in way of the lyrics to the patriotic number Hand In Hand, and the exotically tasteful lead work on the acoustic ballad Forever. Back In The Zone, intentionally or not has a lot of tribal elements to the song, especially with the stretched vocals on the verses and the unusual drumbeat at the song’s median.

Vocally yet again the album becomes incomparable to a standard thrash metal album. Zomb has developed an interesting style of his own, where he alternates clean and dirty vocals against the same back drop in succession. For instance, on Duff Stereo Groove, he alternates between a smooth clean voice and a coarse growl.

Zomb’s treatment of the voice of the band, with a blend of leveled and varying layers, has been adhered to with the rest of the band as well. The band fuses acoustic breaks into many of it’s heavy tracks, such as You’re Bloody Right. While this may seem odd most of the times, the band have managed to pull it of, right before the balladry aspect of the album becomes excessive.

Connect & Inspire is a very good effort from a band, which seems to be jelling together really well. The album has touched open many different styles and it would be interesting to see what sort of sound the band finally settles on in the future, as it still seems the band is trying to find that perfect match.