BLACK BREATH - "Heavy Breathing"

Artist:  Black Breath
Song:  Virus
Album:  Heavy Breathing
Year:  2011
Genre:  Thrash / Crust Punk / Death Metal

Ok…I’m coining a musical term!  The Second Wave of Crossover.  It’s going to be huge some day!  The original term “crossover” was the unholy marriage of thrash metal and hardcore.  My second wave version is just a different musical marriage.  You take one-part beats and rhythms from extreme crust-core gods like Extreme Noise Terror, Wolfbrigade, Amebix and His Hero Is Gone and add the ever-so-famous Swedish “HM-2” guitar tone from innovators Dismember and Entombed.  This combination produces a unique aural experience that teeters between crust punk and death metal.   This union has produced many incredible bands such as Nails, All Pigs Must Die, Acephalix, The Secret, Trap Them and Bellingham, Washington’s thrashing kings Black Breath.  Although Black Breath isn’t truly breaking new ground, they know how to take a song to its maximum potential.  Rarely taking their foot off the gas, they toss a lot of curveballs in their delivery, weaving in and out of a variety of styles to take the listener through a whole album without feeling as if it is one big, heavy blur. The aggression of this band could take down a rhino.  Not exactly what you expect from such a lovely little hippy-esque city so close to the Canadian border.  As mentioned, the originality factor isn’t off the charts but their conviction is unquestionable.  Black Breath play the right riffs, play the right rhythms, scream the right vocals, and utilize everything that’s great about death metal and crust punk.  One of the stronger new bands in years!

Listen to "Virus" here.