Next year, Sweden’s Exhale (with former and current members of e.g. Anata, Inevitable End, Miseration, Cipher System or Age Of Woe) will celebrate their tenth anniversary. But first they wanted to release their third full length, after Prototype (2006, Emetic Records) and Blind (2010, Dark Balance Records). This new album, called When Worlds Collide, was recorded, mixed and mastered by Ulf Blomberg at HoboRec Studios (We Are The Damned, Inevitable End, Dethrone, Counterblast, Grace.Will.Fall etc.) and lasts for about thirty six minutes. There are fourteen tracks on the album, which means that the average duration of the songs isn’t that impressive at all. With exception of the last one, Left Inside, all of them last in between half a minute and four minutes. But of course that isn’t that bizarre for a Grind-act, as you know.
In comparison to both former albums, When Worlds Collide is less grinding. Most songs, of course, bring Blast-Death / Grindcore à la Brutal Truth, Rotten Sound, Nasum and the likes. It means ferocity, brutality, speed and terror. But more than before, these moshing assaults come with an own approach, which must be the main reason why these Swedes aren’t just ‘another Grind-act’. Add a Death Metal sound, a sludgy approach and lots of oppressing decelerations, and try to define the sound created by Exhale. Indeed, this is Grindcore that differentiates itself from the grey masses. And what’s more, the album contains a couple of songs that are far distinctive from the average. Monuments Of Death, for example, is a rather hypnotic Old School Doom-Death epic with a mostly haunting and obscure atmosphere. The same goes for the last track (which last for about seven minutes and a half), which dwells within spheres of Doom-Death rather than Blast / Grind. Also the injection of colossal Sludge-elements is an element that makes this band unique within its specific genre.
No matter if you’re into Blast-Death Metal or Grindcore; you will just adore this fantastic Exhale-release, which is the band’s strongest effort to date for sure.