Friends of heavy duty shooters, take note! Discard, from the eastern shores of Finland, display the kind of chops and blows on their debut album that most bands seek through their entire careers. The barest spots of the Amazon have rarely seen levelling of this kind from such fresh faces.

Classifying the band is a task indeed. The roots are firmly planted in furious thrash metal, but with a truckload of modern touches. For some sort of reference album, I guess The Haunted’s debut wouldn’t be a complete misfire. The pulverizing production that is nearing perfection also plants the sonics that blast forth from the album firmly into the 21st century. How orgasmic it is to once in a while hear an album where the bass drum actually thuds with might instead of watered-down slapping.

Bleeding Lead is a perfect opener for this album. About a half of a minute spent with building a good riff-burst and BOOM! Strategic knuckles right into the forehead. Works like beauty! So do the speedy riffmonsters Demonology and Pulse. A slight melodic death metal flavour abounds, although the mood is still very thrashy. The rapid punkishness of Fiend, while still fast and furious, doesn’t grab my nuts with similar intensity for some reason. Meanwhile, the groovy tightness of The True Northern Mindset locks into a Pantera-class pulverize-mode to produce great results. Draconian Measures slays just because of the bass intro alone. The brutally catchy chorus on Circles Of Bonedust should be killer when played live. The epic vibes on Concubine are something that really stick out as a moment on the album and is something that the band will hopefully explore more boldly in the future as well.

The band plays together insanely well and extra mentions must be made about drummer Ronkainen, who is a veritable beast with his beats and fills. Vocalist Miettinen has a strong, harsh bark that is somewhat reminiscent of Lamb Of God’s Randy Blythe, only a bit more guttural. A semi-regular guest on a little under half of the songs is Amorphis alpha male Tomi Joutsen. His grandiose, mountain king-style voice is a perfect contrast to Miettinen and the mixture of flavours is delightful.

As a non-musical extra mention, I must also commend the band members pics in the inner sleeve. Japanese artist Hase-san has drawn some killer images of the guys in the band as soldiers that seem like straight from the set of the latest Command & Conquer-games, complete with titles like “detonation expert” and “battlefield command”. I’d say appeals the most to nerds like myself.

All in all, Carrion is a blistering offering of kick-ass metal that I can definitely name as the most impressive debut record I have heard all year. This is definitely a band that can keep the flag of Finnish metal flying on any continent. Be warned and take cover!