Intractable is a 4-piece modern thrash/death metal act from Switzerland. The band was formed in 2006 by guitarist Dominik Meier and drummer/singer Benjamin Kottmann and was later joined by bassist Michael Schuler and guitarist Markus Hospenthal. These guys have been playing live since 2009, supporting bands such as Gurd, Warbringer or Skelleton Witch and Inner Decay is their first studio album after 2010's demo First Eruption.

The album starts with Captured, a great song with some memorable parts, some tempo changes and a few delicious details. Benjamin Kottmann's powerful drumming and harsh singing are the song's main driving force, but he's not alone on this one, being nicely complemented by some gripping guitar riffs and an amazing pounding bass. This great song sets the listener in the right set of mind and following tunes such as No Tomorrow, Enslavement, The New Belief or Breaking Strength of Mind keep showing off the band's ability to create powerful, fast and furious thrash/death metal songs that sound modern while retaining a classic/vintage feeling. Sometimes I find it hard to believe how is Benjamin Kottmann able to scream his lungs out in this manner while he's hitting the drums relentlessly throughout the songs, I really wonder how's he able to keep it up live, particularly since his drumming is so full of little details that must surely be quite hard to pull out while singing / screaming at the same time - and believe me, this guy's harsh singing is also no small feat. Another really nice detail is that we're able to clearly listen and feel the bass in this album, and it really adds up to the whole set! Its contant pounding makes you want to move along and headbang the whole time, it makes you wonder why don't we find this bass sound more often, instead of the usual "let's put it under everything else so nobody will ever find out what notes is this guy playing" approach. The guitars, while not particularly tecnically-evolved, are constantly riffing, cutting and ripping everything, all the time, being a fitting complement amidst all this aggression. As a whole, the songs are mostly uptempo but with a mid-tempo feeling at times, so they feel not too fast and not too varied, relying more on groove than a classic thrash tune would, but it ends up mixing nicely with the angry man's singing and shouting! If only wish it had a little less groove and a little more guitar shredding, at times, that would have made this debut album an instant classic for both old and new thrash fans, I hope they nail that perfect spot in the future, since they haven't missed it by much, anyway.

Production is great, that bass sound is really amazing and the vocals, although sounding above everything else, somehow seem to be just right, sounding this way, and I believe this wouldn't be able to sound as good any other way, so that should say enough of how I feel about the production work in this one. A final mention to the album cover: it's got 80's thrash written all over it, which would be great if these guys were playing 80's thrash, which they're not, so this might end up being a little misleading for someone picking the album randomly from the shelf - and we all know how we usually decide to pick a new album based on its cover, don't we?



Besides that, Intractable made a really interesting and powerful debut album, hope they'll be able to build on it! As far as rating go, this one'll be getting 76 out of 100.

Rating: 76%