The Retaliation Process – Downfall

Releasedate: 26-02-2010; Label: Silverwolf Productions/Intergroove
By: Elvira Visser

The Retaliation Process is a Hamburg (Germany) based band which was founded in the year 2008 and now presents its debut album called “Downfall”. All members are part of Hamburg’s metal scene and have played in bands like Mephistopheles, Nayled and Meguro.

The sound on their CD “Downfall” can be described as metalcore with trash and death metal elements. Overall the album shows no real differences compared to other bands in the same genre; nice growls on up-tempo metal. Something that does surprise is the presence of a little bit clean vocals, in a bit melancholic gothic way which does create a nice contrast with the rough edge of metalcore. When you get near the ending of the disc you might feel that you hear nothing new. However the tracks are well composed and produced only a bit of the same. The track “…Prozac” is an instrumental number that keeps the nice pace out of the album, the flow is gone. It is nice sounding but just some guitar, nothing fancy. Maybe they should have put this as a secret ending to “Bride End”. Luckly the whole sound kicks back in with rousing guitar melodies and the nice screaming from Christoph Madarasz. “On The Way Back” has a nice intro, the instrumental guitar maybe makes its way back for a brief second before you hear raindrops falling out of the sky and the more used (by other bands) thunder. They present us with a nice debut album, a steady record with no real weak but also no strong moments.

Tracklist: 01 Uprising 02 Blindfolded 03 Four Seasons Of Self Mutilation 04 Bridge End… 05 … Prozac 06 Carnal Addiction 07 Down 08 On The Way Back 09 Written In Red Ink 10 Uncertain