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Demonik are, if nothing else, an interesting band. Formed in 2007, these Spanish thrashers have gone beyond the usual confines of Thrash to create a more individual sound on this album, and the results are sometimes excellent, but a bit uneven overall.

Starting with a Bay-Area Thrash base, Demonik have mixed in everything from Melodic Death Metal, Modern Metal à la Trivium, groove, punk, and even some symphonic elements for good measure, all topped off with frontman David Alarcia's death growling and the sometimes James Hetfield-esque singing style. This should make for a lurching disaster of pretension and percussive noise but, to their credit, everyone in the band sounds like they're working off each other to create a unified whole while showing of some damn impressive musicianship. Of particular note is the 24-minute centerpiece "Voices from Hell", a Symphonic Metal epic featuring beautiful female vocals courtesy of Mary Lucas that shows what the band can do at full power.

That said, this album is too long at over an hour, and with every song ranging from around 5 minutes to the previously mentioned epic, it can all start to blend together in a mishmash of fury and complexity. Despite all that, Rise from Chaos is an intriguing record that manages to put a novel spin on the Thrash genre. They may not be as unique and grandiose as they want to be, but they certainly have the chops to be, and if they tighten up their sound a little, I know they will.