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King Leviathan is a new Thrash band from the UK that was formed less than two years prior to this review (January 2014). The newness of the band belies some solid playing and an admittedly unique sound and I'm having a bit of a love/hate experience with their 2015 EP The Shrine. When King Leviathan gets down to serious riffing and employs Death Metal vocals they are quite entertaining. The bellowing chorus of "worm-woooood!" on the track of the same name followed by the slow, evil riffs then the Hanneman/King solo had my neck snapping. What turns me off are the clean vocals and, to a lesser extent, the modern approach to the songwriting. When the singer turns to clean singing his voice sounds a bit like Doug Pinnick from King's X and it just doesn't mesh with the music with the same intensity as the Death vocals. As I said the songs have a modern flavor with quick cuts and changes that feel more like breakdowns than fluid shifts in tempo but the down-tuning isn't awful. I can also do without the facepaint and punk stares in the band photos.

While certainly not for the retro Thrash fan, The Shrine is not your average modern Thrash release and the adventurous among us should give it a spin.