Netherblade come from Italy, they exist as band since 2016 and after an EP and some individual single releases, they have released this week their debut album Reborn! As you may have already understood from the band logo and the overall album cover aesthetics they play old school Thrash metal a fact which biased me positively to prioritise their promo for listening and reviewing.
To start with the strong points of the album I must say that the overall work in the compositions is great, with the riffs being both fast and galloping bringing personally to mind the combination of Thrash and Power metal that bands like Overkill or Annihilator have introduced and played in the 80's and 90's respectively. However what really doesn't work well is the production. Maybe a matter of a personal preference but to my ears is sounds too digital, too clean and "flat" removing (unfortunately) plenty of the songs aggression and energy. I would not call Reborn a missed opportunity but, since is Netherblade's first album, rather a lesson learned for the future. The band has definitely the skills to write some killer songs but they need to find a suitable engineer to help them record them...
