Ah, Nasum. It’s honestly quite a shame that the frontman, Mieszko Talarczyk, was killed in the tsunami a while back. His band could have gotten more done, and he could have produced so many more awesome albums (Rotten Sound’s Exit as an example) before his untimely demise.

Plus, maybe his band could have gone out on an even better note.

Nasum has produced four albums in their too-short career. Two, Inhale/Exhale and Helvete, were modern classics of grindcore, revered by modern grind-heads the world over. Human 2.0, the album in-between those two, suffered from varying levels of quality in the songs. Sure, there were some individual classics among ‘em (Shadows, The Idiot Parade, and others), but grind albums have to be consistent to be perfect.

Shift is another bout of inconsistency from the Sweden grinders. Some songs are just plain boring while others get your blood up and drive you psycho. Some songs suffer from terrible third-rate riffs, and some have instantly memorable riffs that you catch yourself humming in the morning while you get ready to go to work. Luckily, the album doesn't suffer enough in the wake of these to make it a shitty album, just removes it from the hallowed halls of perfection that Helvete graced.

The production is nice; reminds me of Human 2.0 with a stronger guitar tone and less bass emphasis, which is to say, that you should turn the bass up if you want to hear it very well. The vocals (vitriol, venom, and acidic bile... from your speakers to your ears) are way too high up in the mix. They irritate me. Drumming is sometimes hard to make out under the firestorm of wrath that the guitars create, but it’s rather good per usual, blastbeats with minimal fills that are par for the modern grind course. It might prove welcome to people who think modern albums have drums that are way too loud, with less riff-focus.

The songs, as I said, are inconsistent. Sure, Mieszko’s in top form on this release, screaming like a demented banshee next to the violent jackhammer riffage and the violent piledriver drumming, but some tracks, like number one, Particles, are just lame. Nasum was never a band to experiment with slower tempos more than once an album, if at all, and Particles is really a song that should never have been written. It just doesn’t work. Mieszko’s vox don’t sound right over slower riffs, as decently written as they may be. Plus, the vacuum-cleaner noise right before the riffs start is just really annoying.

Then you get, on the other hand, songs as good as The Engine of Death, which would have easily fit on Helvete. It boggles the mind.

All in all, Shift isn’t one of Nasum’s best albums, but besides that, it’s still very good. Just be ready to skip maybe six of the 24 songs and you’ll have yourself a good time with it.