Over the last decade, Richmond's Enforced have established themselves as one of the premiere thrash metal bands in the world. Through their modern take on energetic crossover, they've become known as a name synonymous with high-quality audio assaults. After the absolute burnout of the neo-thrash era of the early 2010s, Enforced emerged to breath some much-needed life into thrash by injecting a healthy dose of modern hardcore, making their sound punishing and ripping in equal measure. After a string of three excellent albums, the band has returned with a new EP to keep the momentum going.
A Leap Into the Dark features three brand-new songs, along with a b-side and covers of English Dogs and Obituary (showing both sides of the band's heritage). This essentially makes the EP a stop-gap recording that will be great for completists and big-time fans of the band. However, there are a lot of cool moments that stand on their own across the recording.
The album opens with the apocalyptic "Betting on the End," featuring some amusing lyrics to go along with the circle-pit ready groove ("Blow up your retirement, then anger your kids" lol). The coolest moment here comes toward the end of the song with some neat palm-muted riffwork. But this song is totally eclipsed by the EP's righteous title track, which features an absolute banger of a breakdown at the 3:10 mark. Enforced is at their best when they bear their hardcore side as much possible, as it allows the furious energy to explode through the speakers.
That said, the band has some cool tricks up their sleeves when they go all-out thrash as well. This is what the listener is treated to on "Deafening Heartbeats." It's fast as hell! There's lots of divebombs! Some cool soloing too! Plenty of double-kick action! Did I mention divebombs?
The second half of the song starts out with the death-thrash killfest of "Casket," a short blast of firepower that flattens everything in its path in less than 2 minutes. And then, well, I'll never complain about a Slowly We Rot-era Obituary cover, so it's pretty sweet to get a "Deadly Intentions" cover. I'm also glad that Knox did the song justice without trying too hard to sound like John Tardy.
But I have to say that the band's cover of "The Chase Is On" is my favorite song on the second half. The consistent chugging power just makes it an irresistible listen, and Enforced's sound is well-suited to punk-rock revitalization. Maybe they should do a whole record of this stuff!
Again, I wouldn't say that this EP is essential listening or representative of the band's best work. But if you dig them, you'll dig this. It's just a fun way to get something out there and continue their relentless journey of metallic-hardcore greatness.
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