Sober Truth was founded in 2007, originating from Siegburg, Germany. With their first album titled "Riven", released in 2008, the band has gone on to play over two hundred and fifty shows and establish a well credited six album discography. The band meshes several genres into their sound, ultimately defying any laws of genre in general. This is a band that proves that with time, effort, and structure you can piece together a solid and very interesting album without sticking to just one sound and genre. So, I will now continue to dive into reviewing their latest release, "Psychosis".

Where do I even begin with this album? Less than half way through it, I was laughing and saying to myself "What are these guys doing?". I don't mean that in a bad way! I have listened to metal since I was eleven years old, of all genres. Genres I liked, genres I disliked... Bands I loved, bands I hated. I am thirty years old now so I consider myself to be a veteran metal listener and enthusiast! I don't think I've heard an album quite like this. It's one of the most original pieces that I've heard in all twenty plus years of being a part of the heavy metal community. To be honest, I don't think there's one sub genre of metal that isn't covered or installed into the writing of this album. It's all over the place with different style riffs and vocals. But, it's structured and pieces together so well. You can surely tell that this band has a great number of influences and talent. I knew by the time I got to the fourth track that this was going to be a hard album to review, because there was so much to take in and process. I will try to break it down with a few of the following tracks to give a general understanding and idea of what you, as the listener is about to experience.

The album opens up with the song "Solitude". When you being to listen to this, you're thinking "okay, pretty basic sounding. Thrash style riffs, with a little touch of black metal." It's very energetic and intense! At about the two minute and ten second mark of the song, it starts to turn with a clean, whacky sounding riff that throws you off. This shows that maybe the band is a little experimental in what they're doing with this record. Following "Solitude" and second track on the album is "Akardos", which punches you with an immediate lead guitar, then goes into a Tool-esque bass line. This is another signal that this band and album has more to them than what you think. By the time you finish "Akardos" and delve into the third song, it starts to descended a little more into their plethora of sounds. "Sober (Re-Arranged)", the eighth song, much resembles the likeliness of Melodic Death Metal elements. Aside from that, you have songs on this album that mildly remind me of Type O Negative or A Pale Horse Named Death at times, such as the title track "Psychosis". The final track on the album really throws you off. I thought my phone began to play a different band. "Collapse" is an acoustic and unplugged track, featuring a harmonica. This song has a very strong western sentiment to it, and frankly it's awesome.

Everything on this album was great. What stuck out to me the most was the vocals. Even with as good as the instrumentals were with a vast amount of talent and zestfulness, I don't think anything stuck out to me more than the vocals did. To be in a band that has instrumentals as diverse as this one, it's important that you have a singer that can match that criteria with his or her voice. This album is purely dynamic and is a great example of the high intellect that musicians in this genre can accomplish. This was an album that makes me happy to be a fan of Heavy Metal.