from two-man project BELETH, blasts, crashes and grooves its way into the top tier of Aussie Metal. Drawing from a wealth of inspiration, BELETH channel SEPULTURA, LAMB OF GOD, even GOJIRA, all while sounding new and fresh and being exciting to listen to. Featuring both intro and outro tracks, the album is a well-crafted, heavy-as-hell deep dive into Groove Metal. Chris Long's instrumentation is fantastically executed. The drums are understated and serve the music well, whilst also having a few interesting fills. There is beauty in the simplicity of some of the musical section, with there being a definite emphasis on the 'Groove.' The music doesn't force me to wrap my head around it like a MESHUGGAH album, it's purely fun. Sebasthian Bentos-Pereira has a beautiful growling roar, his vocals always punching hard through the music.

The intro track provides very little in the way of narrative, instead acting as an atmospheric palette cleanser before the crushingly heavy opening of the title track "Silent Genesis." Thrashing into life, the speedy drums and high-pitched abrasive guitar tone are an assault on the senses. The vocals are sung with lots of clarity, despite being harsh and throaty. This song features an amazing straight snare build up into a breakdown, akin to the classis "Mr Highways Thinking About the End" build up. The breakdown boasts a great guitar solo and intensely heavy drums. Track three has an awesome instrumental opening, with some LAMB OF GOD-esque riffing and sick snare heavy blasts on the drums. "Black Speech" is significantly more pulled back in its tempo, resulting in brutally heavy, prime headbanging sections, whilst retaining some complexity in the double bass patterns, this song oozes groove and is a highlight of the album, perfectly breaking up the album to prevent the songs blending together, as the previous tracks tend to do.

I'm a sucker for any drum beat with a ride bell, and the drummer splits toms and the ride bell very nicely in the intro of "Beleth." The entire drum track for this song is fantastic, with the ride bell being a running motif throughout, the vocals are also at their most diabolical, sections of whispering, deep growls and even a Black Metal screech, BELETH shake the formula for the final song, before leaving us suspended in the atmospheric ringing of the outro track.

If you miss the heyday of Groove Metal, when there was a constant stream of excellent albums from excellent bands like SEPULTURA, LAMB OF GOD, MACHINEHEAD, this album harks back with its up tempo riffs, blend of Thrash and Death Metal drumming and a great vocal performance, its great fun to listen to and gives very little to criticise.