Speed Metal is a fun genre, but it always seems like a genre that never has room to expand. This is not entirely true for MANIFESTIC, a Progressive Speed Metal band from Germany, however their debut full-length "Anonymous Souls" does show signs of unoriginality. In fact, there is almost no originality. When it comes down to riffs, this album has plenty of them, however, the quality of said riffs is pretty poor. Each riff is similar to the next, and none of them stand out. They're all pretty typical Speed Metal riffs with a few extra notes thrown in for technicality points.

A good example of this is "Deaf, Dumb and Blind" as each riff is something from an EXCITER or JUDAS PRIEST song but with extra notes thrown in to make it a little more appealing to a prog nerd. But it doesn't matter how many notes they sprinkle in because it hardly ever goes anywhere worthwhile. One area where some songs do excel in is songwriting. While the compositions are, for the most part, basic, there are some unpredictable moments on "Spiritual Abyss" and "Time Will Collapse". Both songs have slightly atmospheric interludes that give the music a lot of much-needed depth. Unfortunately, the latter of the two songs has this choppy middle section where riffs build up to literally nothing over and over again.

"Anonymous Souls" is an average album until you hit the end of "Spiritual Abyss". Everything after that to "Poisoned Waters" is either generic or a complete mess. The riffs on "Silicon War" are all very melodic and uplifting, but this is one of the worst songs on the album because of just that. It's too predictable, and the melodies are all extremely cliché.

"Code of Silence" is a conglomeration of random riffs ranging from Glam Metal to Speed Metal to absolute garbage. There was one moment at about 2:35 where a good groove occurred, but it got old quickly. The riffs go from one feeling to the next, and it's a complete mess. I would have included "Poisoned Waters" with the "unpredictable interlude" section of this review, but the atmospheric bits aren't interesting. In fact, they're pretty boring and poorly transitioned into. The instrumentals are doing all right on this album, but when it comes to vocals, this album falters even more. The first thing I noticed about the vocals was that his voice was very dry. Honestly, it sounds like he's doing his harsh vocals wrong. If I were him (and if I could sing), I would have just gone with clean vocals because this album would have sounded better if something went normally.

In total, this album has about one song that is both interesting and well-organized, and it only lasts about two minutes. Every other song either has interesting moments only to be weighed down by poor songwriting or it has good songwriting but is completely lackluster. The musicianship is great, but there is a lot of work needed to be done for this band.