A modern day thrash band is what you get from Afflicted Truth. Hailing from South Africa, playing fast and faster, this band consists of Daniel Silva-bass, Hilton Lazenby-vocals/guitars, and Grant Lazenby-guitars/drum programming. Yes that's right drum programming so they don't have a live drummer. What they do have in this department is occasionally interesting drum tracks, and occasionally obviously triggered drum effects. Anyone who reads my reviews often knows I'm not very upset by the use of a drum machine so really this wasn't a big deal for me.
Overall the band writes really heavy and fast thrash influenced songs (go figure one of them is wearing a Slayer shirt in the pictures!) The vocal approach used is a low growl that is very understandable. I actually had about half the lyrics just from listening to the CD. The rest of the lyrics that I read show that this band is nothing but a Christian death/thrash unit. I love the first verse of the title track:
Hypocritical Saints
Accusing among ourselves
Too proud to help me
While the body slowly rots
The song 'Plankeye' also deals with the adversity of judging people before you know anything about them. There are 7 songs total with one instrumental, and one "Bonus Track" called Mary's Lamb which is somewhat silly. Production level is about a mid level, while not pristine I have heard much worse. All in all Afflicted Truth is a really good band with a lot of talent. I'd really like to see these guys get signed and given some real studio time. LABELS LISTEN UP with Afflicted Truth and Die Version it might be time to really look at the South Africa metal market!
Need to get in touch with Afflicted Truth? E-Mail them and they'll be glad to give you ordering info.
7/10
