We have another band from South America for our listening pleasure today kids. CRITICAL DEFIANCE from Chile (again!) is introducing their latest work, The Search Won't Fall via Unspeakable Axe Records. It is a full 5 piece band with 2 guitar players ( no keyboards) and their output seems to be a mix of Thrash with touches of everything else you can imagine. The boys are hard workers as well since this is a follow up to their last album No Life Forms from 2022.

The album starts with  the title song “The Search Won’t Fall” and you can see a plethora of great heavy riffs and and plenty of energy even before the vocalist opens his mouth. Great introduction for an album that promises. Pure unabashed Thrash in your veins my friends, and it feels good. Great musicianship and creativity can also be felt on tracks like “Helpless World” and “Long Distance”. The festival of crazy riffs and moods in each song is impressive and the boys surely drank from the SLAYER fountain. Felipe Alvarado's good vocals remind me of Tom Araya with some gutural added, and I believe fits like a glove with the musical output.

Some of the songs are meaty with over 5 minutes and, as the album progresses, they tend to go more to the direct, short, in your face Trash with songs around 2 minutes or a little more like the good “Absolüt”. They also add in the mix  44 seconds of absolut Black Metal craziness that is “All The Powers” that is  a good surprise. Drummer Rodrigo Poblete got all the fast beats and crazy transitions upon his sleeve and some.The band also added  a short instrumental ala Fade To Black by METALLICA very well performed by the guys called “Blind Divine”, and another one on “Margarita” showing that Trash Metal musicians are nothing else than pissed off Classical musicians. There is nothing wrong mixing these good instrumentals amongst so much chaos and heaviness. These 2 instrumentals are very creative and completely non Thrash.

However they do also have a third one that is pure Thrash Metal on “Bulldog” that you can actually listen to the bulldogs singing. The album is a well thought project with a variety of nuances offering the listener the perhaps necessary break from the relentless brutality of the other tracks. Speaking of brutality, the album ends with the song that names the band “Critical Defiance” and is 9:35 minutes of relentless musicianship and power. CRITICAL DEFIANCE has the solid guitar duo of Mauricio Toledo and Nicolas Young , more like a Trashy AC DC as one carries the riff and the other the solos. Closing the Royal Flush is good bassist Ignacio Arévalo that reminded me of Cliff Burton for some reason. Buen trabajo from well seasoned musicians and their live performances on youtube are killer.