Agitation

I acquired this CD in a large wholesale lot of metal and hard rock CDs that I bought on ebay. This was the first CD that I listened to from that lot.

This is a fairly standard thrash metal release without any real distinguishing characteristics to it from any other thrash album. The riffs are all basic thrash riffs that have been done a thousand times before by hundreds of bands before this one. Think watered down Testament riffs from Practice What You Preach and you get a pretty good idea what this band sounds like. Another thing this album seriously lacks are some good guitar solos. There are a few solos scattered throughout the album, but there is not one single solo that really grabs your attention and makes you think you are listening to anything more than a run of the mill thrash guitarist.

The vocals are also fairly standard and remain unchanged throughout much of the album. The vocalist sounds like a less threatening Chuck Billy or Eric Knutson.

One of the things that I did like on this album was some of the industrial effects that the band added in some of the songs. There is a knocking sound in Suicidal Solution that seriously made me get up and check my door to make sure the sound was actually coming from the speakers and not my door. There are also some odd effects in Eternal You and The Final Scream.

Overall, this is a solid release, but it's just not very memorable and it sounds like may bands that came before and after Am I Blood.

This album show cases how similar this band sounds like Testament or Metallica. The vocals are reminiscent of Chuck Billy or Hetfield at times. Sometimes they sound like like Layne from Alice and Chains. Also there seems to be an excess of distortion or some kind of effect on the vocals. The riffs on this particular album remind me more of Testament but their next album after this is more like Metallica. There are some nice thrash riffs on this album at times. Negative starts off the album pretty nicely lots of thrash in this intro. Segregated holocaust is the mellow track of this album its alrite but not a hi lite. My personal favorite track is The Final scream its probably shreds the most. This album is good not legendary but it is worth a few listens. I got mine for five bucks on amazon and for that price im not complaining. If you like Testament or Metallica check them out.