Stephen
When it comes to replicate what Sepultura has achieved with 'Beneath The Remains', I guess Total Annihilation has done a pretty wonderful job. Not only that the overall sound is very close to them, Daniel Altwegg's vocal bears a close resemblance to the young Max Cavalera. Switzerland isn't very famous with thrash, but this band waves the flag of their country to settle in for a good competition in the wave of Bay thrash revival.
'Big,Fat Lying Bastards' is a ferocious start, check out the big fat groovy riffs, it's fast and furious at the same time. The verse and chorus is powerful and they play nicely with the tempo, slowing down a bit in the middle, before crashing the wall again to the end. A great track, but perhaps better in a shorter duration. The title track, '84', is another violent exploitation of good ol' classic thrash, love these two, but unfortunately, 'Social Distortion' dip down in quality, but nevertheless still a good one. 'Circle Mosh' has some nice variation and even the death/thrash cross is obvious here like Sepultura.
'Monster', started slow, building up the intensity with such a superb riffs and all hell broke loose on the chorus. This is the best of the bunch, followed by 'Atomic Suicide'. I just hope they came out like this for the rest, but sadly the last two tracks are quite far to be honest and drag the whole album down.
A promising band indeed - the production is great but they surely need to develop their own identity, try to sway away from being a mere Sepultura/Slayer copycat. Good album and let's hope they'll come up with a better one later on.