THY DISEASE is a band from Poland, formed in 1999 and 'till now having released four albums with this one, entitled Rat Age, out in the streets in 2006 while they had recorded it in November 2005. This year - in the end of February - Metal Mind Productions decided to re-release it, preparing the ground for the new album that will be out soon.
If you had missed Rat Age, I can assure you that you are not missing anything special and basically I cannot find a reason for this re-release. The music is an amalgam of SAMAEL records from Passage and after, together with some EMPEROR in their last two shitty records. Except these, you will meet plenty of influences like MORBID ANGEL riffs in the first idea of Earth Will Shake... or some keyboard atmosphere like ROTTING CHRIST's in albums like Genesis or Khronos. Some songs are good, like Prophesy or Earth Will Shake..., which has a very good a-la BOLT THROWER solo, a song with a well-worked structure. Unfortunately, the last four songs are a complete crap, with Rat Age and Unity being something like dance or techno music that I cannot stand at all.
Another important thing I must say here is that Rat Age is a concept album, dealing with a scenario of the final destruction of the earth. You will meet powerful organizations that want to control the life of humans, some rebel teams that want to throw them away, the environment destruction, biological experiments in forgotten and hidden under the earth laboratories and (final consequence) the whole mayhem and destruction of the planet with the help of mass destruction weapons. It's a nice concept and together with the industrial feel that music has, the band tries to proclaim a nightmare surround to the listener's imagination. For this reason I have to accept their plastic drumming that sometimes (in some blast parts) sounds very bad.
I guess a friend of SAMAEL must check this band; the others will find it pathetic.