The Metal world has been crying out for a band that mixes chuggalicious Modern Thrash with In Flames-esque Melodeath for years now, yet it’s strange that French four-piece Lyzanxia have been slaving away since 1996 at this very coalface without the recognition you’d expect. Normally I’d be mildly sarcastic about this sort of band, but these fine fellows get a pass due to bassist Eguil also being a member of awesome post-Black Industrial mentalists Reverence, and when you look at Locust (the band’s fifth full-length) with such clear and uncynical vision as is my wont, it’s actually not bad. Yeah, so vocalist/guitarist David has a rather cloying screech/yelp approach that doesn’t get much better when the band break out the clean vocals and turn into a more metal version of Disturbed.

But, and it’s a big but, these boys are clearly capable of putting one riff after another without tripping themselves up, and the likes of opener Prime Thrill have a groovy catchiness that will appeal to fans of Friden. Given time to grow on you, Locust actually has the potential to be a very good album for fans of modern Melodeath. You can’t fault the chorus of Under Lie, for example, or the mumbling riffage that opens Separate World. Just because The Haunted have perfected this kind of thing is no reason why other bands can’t take their own swing at it, after all, and whilst Lyzanxia never match up to the high heights reached by the Björler brothers there’s enough going on generally to make your shrugs of indifference less enthusiastic the more you listen. Yet when all is done, the just-under-fifty-minute running time is over, can you remember a single song? No, something which In Flames never suffers from. So yeah, it’s a grower, but no, it never really gets good enough to recommend wholeheartedly.