Andy Kichi

First out of Pittsburgh's tech-metalcore gate were Hero Destroyed and Complete Failure. Now here comes Storm King, whose debut CD, out on vocalist Scott Massie's long-running Innervenus label, deserves national release as much as the others.

When Storm King emerged in 2006 as a three-piece with guitarist Adam Weston and drummer Tom D'Andrea, its original emphasis was stoner doom a la The Sword. But the addition of technically proficient guitarist Andy Kichi (of EnemyMind) and hardcore-influenced bassist Mark Bogacki soon moved the group in a more diverse, yet more classically metal-sounding direction.

From the opening salvos of the first track, "Keeper of Shadows," Kichi's blistering leads and Massie's assertive attack make it clear that the No. 1 influence is now Slayer. Which is fine, but there's more to Storm King than that. There are glimpses of a complex math-rock realm (Don Caballero meets Meshuggah) in the instrumental "A Constant Struggle," while "Lack Luster" displays sludgy grindcore elements.

Most promising is the closing 16-minute title track, which begins with acoustic guitar, works its way through keyboard lines, a metal theme and a tribalistic rhythmic workout, and concludes with bagpipes (courtesy of pipe-band member D'Andrea). I'm not sure the band was listening to Dead Can Dance and Test Department or the Brazilian percussion parts of a Sepultura album, but this impressive pagan-prog-metal approach is just the ticket to lift Storm King above the glut of tech bands that rely on sheer brutality to win the day - Pittsburgh City Paper

On the album everything was combined, which makes a good album. Beginning with the sound that swoops through the bank everything that gets in the way, the songs, which are all flawless, right up to the absolutely successful artwork. "No Safe Place" basically consists exclusively of Killersongs, which one can evaluate completely as "first class". When the disc begins with a summoner's intro, "Giving Up" and "Just Gets Worst" immediately hail the first juicy eaves. With their perfect mix of hardcore and death metal elements, ENEMY MIND meet exactly the tooth of time and move between these two styles so safely and smoothly that you can hardly stand out where you can "No Safe Place "Because it should be arranged exactly. Does not matter at the end, because the disc is so merciless that it does not matter. The fact is that we are dealing here with a top release, so everything else is unimportant. The sound is super fat and especially the drums whip crazy horny forward. The guitars are like machines, the bass is humming every bit of a soundhole. Each of the participating musicians was given an absolute top performance. You can feel in every note formally the pressure that the boys wanted to bring over, which makes "No Safe Place" a thoroughly successful exceptional album. Whether it's "Unlearn Purpose," "Word To God," "The Weight of Guilt," "Dead Wrong," "Cross the Line," every song pops so hard. Basically, any title of the album could have been a hint, because there are no weak songs. "No Safe Place" belongs to every cultivated collection of extreme music - Franconia Metallum