Lost Society – No Absolution – Album Review

Having burst onto the Finnish metal scene about ten years ago, Lost Society promptly went about making quite the name for themselves, with albums landing in the upper reaches of the Finnish charts and securing support slots with thrash royalty such as Exodus!

The question then, is album number 4 going to be the one to push them into the wider conscious of metal fans?

To be brutally honest, the answer is probably not.

“Nonbeliever” starts off with an acoustic, classical style intro which works perfectly well and then the band coming tearing in, with frenzied riffs and a suitable amount of crunch. Granted, the vocals of Sammy Elbanna can grate a little but the problem comes when we get to the chorus, in which Elbanna switches to clean vocals and the music morphs into something you would expect from one of the heavier, turn of the century, nu metal bands.

That really is the tale of this album, at times it thrashes hard – the title track, “Pray For Death” and “Worthless” are all good – but for pretty much every chorus Lost Society default to this nu metal style which ages the album….and not in a good way!

As somewhat of an anomaly, No Absolution closes with the semi ballad “Into Eternity” (featuring Apocalyptica) and while musically it ebbs and flows beautifully, god-alone knows what inspired Elbanna to scream his vocals, in his semi guttural style, when it does not suit the material.

To be fair, it’s not all negative. The songs are for the most part catchy enough and there are some minor moments of thrashy goodness to be found. However, the nu metal inspired moments, on the vast majority of the songs, age the album badly. Ultimately, No Absolutioni s worth a spin or two but not much more than that. 6/10