Cyclone Temple : I Hate Therefore I Am

Arising from the ashes of Znowhite is Chicago's Cyclone Temple. Their sound can best be described as Thrash Metal, although it contains elements of Power Metal, and even Modern Rock. Vocalist Brian Troch has a lower singing voice than the standard thrash outfit, which makes Cyclone Temple stand out a tad more in the originality category.  He ranges from lower spoken voices to higher octave singing notes. The rhythm guitars are also excellent, as you would expect from thrash.

During "Why," a nice, clean guitar passage gradually builds up into a thrasher. The rhythm guitar holds quite an impact on the song, and it leads to Brian's rougher than average vocals. A pretty decent chorus overall. "Sister" starts off slowly again, and then begins a thrashy groove.  A lot of the vocals are semi-spoken, then get a bit higher as the chorus enters. Great vocals mark the song from around 4:35 until its ending. By the time of "Words Are Just Words," the songs are running together a bit, although the song contains many great chops, reminding one of mid 80s Metallica at places. "Public Enemy" is where the album began to get heavier and grabbed my attention. Good rhythms throughout.  The title track, however, is the album's highlight. The vocals are beautiful, the accoustic guitars shine, and the song maintains the heaviness of the aforementioned songs on the album. Check out 5:15 or so into the song:  Excellent vocals, again, that lead up to a killer solo. The rest of the album lacks the intensity of the beginning, except for the last song "Silence So Loud," which has a crunching intro that is sure to keep you listening.  And from there on, the intensity is retained and one is relieved of the filler songs in between. Overall, not too bad of an effort. This album carries a much more saddened tone than the average thrash outfit. It's not exactly a groundbreaking album in any means, but a little more than I would expect from the blandness that thrash started to become once the 90s hit.  Bruce's different from the norm thrash vocals are worth listening to, and the album has its high points of either thrashing out in style or failing to garner my attention. The first half is best, and it closes out nicely. I'll have to try their other releases out.

Reviewed by Sam