By: Anders

Posted: Dec 25, 2005

This starts out very promising, straight ahead old school thrash with a good dose of just as old and hard-hitting crossover elements. They have labelled their style as "criminal thrash", and that might be very fitting, considering how they steal with both arms and legs from other bands… or are they referring to their lyrical subjects…?

Crunchy, straight forward neck-snapping riffs are getting fired at the listener, the beat is being kept up and tight by the simple, at times blasting and always effective drumming. The bass is heavy and follows the rhythm nice and easily, always spreading noise. The guitars are the real highlight in this album, grinding their mainriffs out, spreading darkness and horror with many wicked leads, solos and eerie effects. Some of the riffs adds really good horror inducing parts, that are haunting and sticks to ones mind long after the album stops spinning. The vocals are a good blend of a crossover/hardcore influenced scream, mixed up some more traditional thrashing, not that fast nor screamed, the vocals flow quietly along the music, and tell tales of darkness and horror, they fit the universe of the band really well.

This is a treat and good christmas present for fans of good old thrash with much dust of the genre's golden age over it. Rumpelstiltskin Grinder does borrow many things from other bands, but they do also add a lot of their own into the mix, and that makes it interesting. The album is around 30 minutes, not long for full length many will say, though it is enough, due to the music being as intense as it is and due to the production, which seems a bit "compressed" and thin once in a while, which makes it a bit hard to cope with at times. A pretty good debut from the American band, which tries to add new or at least different elements into the game, and they do succeed to a certain point, I'm sure most fans of this genre will welcome the band and "Buried In The Front Yard", many others will might have a hard time to digest the madness displayed on here. I know I am looking forward to hearing more from the band, they have shown they have a good base to evolve into the best of the best in time.

Rating: 7/10

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