Bloodjinn

While Bloodjinn's Leave This World Breathing may not live up to its sticker's hyperbolic claim of being "this decade's Master of Puppets," it is a strong album. Delving whole-heartedly into the back catalogue of '80s/'90s thrash metal to complement their metallic hardcore assault - complete with prog-metal elements and singing laced throughout - Leave This World Breathing is metal album posing as a hardcore assault. Lower register death growls clash with black-like shrieks and hardcore screams, harmonised leads and solos weave their way into the huge breakdowns while musically running the gamut from technical thrash and blackened death to metallic hardcore, with even the odd intro and melodic, melancholy, airy composition interspersed with the animosity, "The Last Cry." Tracks such as "Goodnight But Not Goodbye," "A Decade of Forced Existence" and "Grey Worlds" show Bloodjinn at their buffeting and metallic best. But while Bloodjinn are undoubtedly technically proficient and musically destructive, plying a combination of sounds that while not overtly original by now, are still moving, sometimes their sound lacks their own signature identity, getting lost in their influences. Still, Leave This World Breathing's metallic assault should leave bodies broken and bleeding wherever Bloodjinn sets foot.