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Interesting little band from Wisconsin here. Rictus Grin play some unpolished heavy/thrash, pretty raw stuff with an OK production, although those into overpolished production will find something to whine about here. :) The album is quite varied, maybe a bit too much for its own good as it's difficult to find any sense of direction here - it's more of a collection of songs than an album per se. Aside from that, the music itself is overall pretty good, but not spectacular. This is a mix of traditional heavy/thrash with some modern influences (sometimes a bit toomodern guitar-wise); there are some good thrash-influenced riffs here and there that'll get you hooked on the first listen, plus some more up-beat moments that borrow more from your run-of-the-mill heavy metal album, say early 80s US metal. It's stuff that you've most likely heard before, but not necessarily with all this variety. The weak point of the album are the vocals; a bit too hardcore-ish most of the time, they take away from the music (which is sometimes difficult to hear underneath.) However there's quite a bit of variety in the vocals as well, from clean to thrash to hardcore-ish (yuk), with even some flirting with death growls.

This release won't make history, but if you like some quick 'n' dirty heavy/thrash and don't mind having some hardcore-ish vocals, then this is probably worth a look.