For Grindcore French outfit NESSERIA, it's all about the brutality. That, and blindingly fast drumming. Their second album "Fractures", incidentally named after the most underwhelming track on the album, is a decent offering that should satisfy their current fans and may even attract new ones to the band and the genre, however it's by no means perfect.

We begin with an explosion of energy in "Des Rues Ordinaires", which is actually one of the more controlled songs of the album and is more traditionally heavy than most of the others. After starting with a very short intro, the terrifying vocals kick in as Julien unleashes his anger into the microphone. The vocals alone are enough to show that the band adopts rage as part of their mantra, and since their focus is on live shows this does make a certain kind of sense as anger can be infectious.

Many of the songs follow the same pattern, with the unintelligible screams often being drowned out by some very impressive technical drumming, while the guitars wail away in the background. There are a couple of exceptions, as in "Leurs Histoires" which utilizes a much softer, slower melody under the same crazy drumming. "Fractures" amounts to nothing but filler in the form of over 3 minutes of ambient noise that doesn't even sound remotely like anything, possibly supposed to act as a respite from the intensity of the listening. This would make sense as from here we move straight on to "L'Incendie", which after a rather poor transition from the previous track once again goes through the motions of mad vocals + mad drums. We are then treated to an oddly sudden change to "Catte Somme De Problemes", which does the same but ends with an admittedly good outro.

The penultimate track "Ceux Qui Restent" surprises by slowing down right at the end in preparation for the transition to "Omayra" which is easily my personal favorite of the record. This instrumental is completely unique to the rest of the songs simply because it's almost in a different genre; there are no vocals, and it is far more melodic than the rest. It's a bold way to end the album, and is perfectly placed as a pleasant surprise to those who listen all the way through.

While there are many good things about "Fractures" (the album, not the song) as a whole, it is also true that a slight lack of imagination has crept through in the similarity between a few of the songs. 10 tracks is not a huge amount either, especially considering that one of them is just noise. Good for a second album, but it could certainly be improved in a third outing.