Fracture - Chaos Alchemy (2024)

3.5★

As far as crossover goes, I’ll be the first to admit that it tends to be a large gray area for me. It was with this release, however, that I experienced a bizarre sense of discovery. I stumbled upon it while looking through new Bandcamp releases and after seeing the sick cover art, I gave it a listen. To my surprise, I really enjoyed it! It has a gnarly guitar tone and very heavy rhythmic parts that give it a certain old-school quality that I really dig. Also, considering FRACTURE is a one-man project, it’s even more impressive given all the single-person songwriting and performances on the album. Even more impressive is getting a guest solo from Brandon Ellis of The Black Dahlia Murder on “Catacomb” – I mean, how sick is that??? While the instrumental work might be more reminiscent of death metal and thrash metal, the vocals have this hardcore punk bite to them which culminates into this blistering crossover sound. They’re fierce and aggressive, but not to the point of exhaustion – something I sometimes experience with crossover. Overall, it’s not the most amazing thing I’ve ever heard, but it’s a very tight and ferociously thrashy crossover record worthy of some listens.

FAVORITE TRACKS: “Hollow Fortress,” “Street Shark,” “Catacomb”

FOR FANS OF: Power Trip, Enforced, Fugitive

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Originally published in Aug. '24 (Issue No. 4)