These Italian Thrashers hail all the way from Pordenone, Italy. They've been active since 2008, yet this is their first release as far as I'm aware. The album starts with the two minute intro track "Origin" that sets the stage with a toddler sobbing in the background as guitars slowly into the foreground, footsteps are heard and the drums kick in as the whole thing step ups its beat. The stage is set and then comes on the next song - "Paralyzed". A chugging hard driven intro riff that settles for a moment to let the first lines sink in and returns to ring through the first verse. A song that deals with isolation, conformity and social expectations and pressures, and the toll they take on the individual since birth. These themes will echo in many songs on this release. After the first verse, this number becomes much less predictable and repetitive than it feels at the beginning, the vocals are great - clean and growls both, the alterations between them are not trivial..

"Mother's Tears" is a song that deals explicitly with the ecological effects by mankind. Air pollution and the ecological disaster in the Mexican Bay in 2010 explicitly, the speaker attacks all whom he sees responsible, the entire capitalist system, human greed and companies such as B.P. Again the alternating vocals are having a lasting effect, in the background evil laughter. The speaker envisions a green and safe world, but he can't breathe. "Deepwater Horizons, Mother Earth is crying / Condemnation with no absolution/ Petrodollars make you rich, but your speculations make us sick." At the middle song, in the background behind the guitars you hear reporter chatter as the song goes into its solo with some good layered guitar work, John Petrucci would appreciate it from a production prospective, but would frown at the monotony.

"Life" starts with a intro that builds up, a very intricate song. Everything is layered but glued together, it's not a subtle work. The song deals with those themes of isolation and social alienation. The drumming work is great though, seems like a lot of effort involved.

"The Shame of God" is one of the more interesting numbers, deals with religion and atrocities carried out in the name of God. A few interesting interludes in the form of chants, but still, except from these recording, it's still pretty monotonic until the outro.

"Resurrection", the closing number and the longest song is maybe a savior. Provides much more melodic variety, even a whole acoustic section. The vocals feel a bit underperformed. After the acoustic part Gianluca sings in anger "I want to see the light! I want to find myself! I want to stop this game, spread my wings and fly." And the song starts to build up towards the its last lines, finally some interesting guitar lines. Two layers of vocals, the clean leading the harsh in the background. Lyrically, the speaker expresses his feelings of alienation and being loss, he questions the meaning of everything and doesn't see any need to continue the struggle until eventually in the last verse he decides to say goodbye.

The production is solid and intricate but the material is very raw. I feel that it needs some polishing. CRANIAN have a few points that differ them from contemporary Thrashcore bands. They're a few notches above your average group production-wise, but the material itself feels banal and cliched. It also feels too solid, a bit too much of the same and also the way that everything is glued together is not always a good thing. While there are great vocal dynamics here, a smart use of harsh vocals and clean vocals, and a high level technicality. the melody itself provides little variety and the vocals feel a bit too much in the background. The album itself feels tedious to listen to. Very monotonic. It starts with great promise, but half-through the album you start feeling that something here is missing. At the second half of the album you have some moments that get your hopes up, with a short acoustic interlude or a less technical riff, but it just goes back to the same thing as before.