To just admit that Polish quintet CHAIN REACTION's first full-length stunningly fleshes out the aural definition of the term pleasant surprise would be a major understatement. Vicious Circle is an awe-inspiring tour-de-force, a crazy roller-coaster ride through addictively catchy and immaculately crafted outbursts of noisy metallic rage.
Producer extraordinaire Tomasz Zalewski masterfully harnesses the band's maelstromic songwriting prowess, managing to sculpt their fist-like tightness into a sound so vitally real, forceful and aggressive that feels like no less than a welcome (and, miraculously, self-financed) punch in the gut. Pounding drums, earth-shattering bass-lines and Robb Flynn-like, throat-abrading shouts, all simultaneously shine, flawlessly mixed with the guitars' imposingly full-fledged, meaty tone. Everlasting Fear, with its anthemic chorus and epically melodic six-string climax, comes across as memorably violent as something SHADOWS FALL might have constructed if for once they spared themselves being obligatorily subjected to their customary large amount of, well, polish. Inner Struggle's dance-able, almost funky intro quickly gives its place to a vicious pummelfest of overlapping riffs, harmonies and macho, PANTERA-like vocal equivalents of squabbling. Slave throws some MAIDEN-esque twin guitar leads into the crucible, while Disbelief jumps onboard with a speedy, Thrash-y couplet that subsequently has its Rock'n'Roll vibe unexpectedly dissolved in an eastern-tinged semi-acoustic passage.
From Worlds Of War's marriage of spoken word and METALLICA's ...Justice...-era grooves, to Values dramatic percussion or Stark Reality's astonishingly arranged clash between SPIRITUAL BEGGARS' deafening psychedelia and ALICE IN CHAINS' whispery withdrawal (captured during a surprisingly quiet, beautifully peaceful segment of the tune), this is an album filled with an improbable plethora of seamlessly interwoven ideas, a record of pure head-banging bliss.

Highly recommended to all of the metal-heads who have been spending most of these last months basking in MACHINE HEAD's blackened sonic shadow.

Someone sign these guys.