After unleashing a superbly received full length album in "Blood Sabbath", Canadian death metal band Serpent Corpse have come up with a new release with strong focus on songwriting and which sees them take their steely, thrash-tinged sound ahead. The songs on "Retaliate" are fleshed out but never forced, showcasing their full expression with them being generally longer than usual. The shortest song on this EP is over five minutes while the longest song crosses the nine minute mark, which clearly indicates the band's progressive tendencies. Each of the songs are packed with riffs albeit meticulously and there are sublime progressions within them all. The raw energy is palpable and comparable to the bands from the late 80s/early 90s when death metal still intermingled with thrash metal elements and the sound kept mutating. It is exciting to see the sound evolve especially towards the end, where they attempt to break out of the mould to write music that is more experimental without losing the plot. Serpent Corpse have not only aced the test with their faultless rendering of classic sounding, thrashy death metal music but their ability to work on it to make it something more than what we've been accustomed to listening to all these years is quite frankly impressive.
