Impaled Nazrene, much like Motorhead, is a band that has a very recognizable sound, but one that alters slightly from album to album to keep things both familiar and fresh. Whether it be the straightforward blast beating ferocity of Nihil or the diversity of 2008’s excellent Manifest, it’s difficult to find a true weak point in the band’s lengthy discography. The latest album from the blasphemous Finnish quartet, Road to the Octagon, is certainly not about to change this; it’s a breakneck thrash-fest, and represents Impaled Nazarene at its most intense. The songwriting may not break boundaries, but the enjoyability factor of Road to the Octagon is second to none.

Road to the Octagon is all about how fast Impaled Nazarene can play, and, as always, it’s very much a riff-oriented album. Many songs, such as Corpses or The Plan, resemble thrash metal far more than black metal with their double-time drumming styles and machine gun riffs. Indeed, Road to the Octagon is full-on blackened thrash metal, complete with strong (yet unmistakably gritty) production, dirty, vile tremolo riffs, and eccentric drumming that is seemingly prepared to blow the roof off the entire damn album. At the same time, however, certain tracks such as the token goat-themed song Cult of the Goat come across as pure black metal. The balance between the two styles is superb, and I don’t think a single album throughout Impaled Nazarene‘s career has so naturally compelled me to headbang as much as this one.

Even through all the blackened, thrashy madness, some diversity manages to shine through. Almost no song is entirely thrash metal or entirely black metal (The Day of Reckoning is a fantastic example that exhibits a great balance of thrash and black moments), some melodies veer close to power metal territory (as they did on Manifest), and many riffs are pure hardcore punk translated into a metal album - a long-running trademark of Impaled Nazarene. Every once in a while, the band will perform a stylistic change or creative guitar riff that really makes you sit up and take notice, even when the album as a whole is one that is hard to tear your attention away from. Road to the Octagon simply kills on nearly every level.

Kept at a short thirty-three minutes in length, Road to the Octagon is perfect as a pick-up-and-listen album, and one that you’ll likely listen to several times in a single day when you first become acquainted with it. It doesn’t break any boundaries, and a tad more originality would push this album into masterpiece territory, but Road to the Octagon is at once one of the most enjoyable albums Impaled Nazarene has ever put out, and one of its most straightforward. From a critics’ standpoint, I can’t feel comfortable giving this album a score above the upper 80’s, yet on a scale of how much I enjoy it, I’d give it somewhere around a 92. Road to the Octagon, consider yourself a late invader into my best-of 2010 list.