SYMBOLIC — Mea Culpa... (review)

Album · 2006 · Thrash Metal

4.5/5 · 2020-03-29
siLLy puPPy

SYMBOLIC started out in 2002 and was founded on the Black Sea coast of Varna, Bulgaria by Stanimir Stavrev (vocals), Nikolay Bonev (guitar), Vasil Harizanov (guitar) and Nikola Nikolov (bass) with Vladimir Marinov (drums) joining two years later. This band got its start playing covers of old school metal bands from the oldies but goodies including Death, Testament, Carcass, Megadeth and Paradise Lost amongst others but once it started writing its own material settled on a distinctly old school thrash metal sound of the early 90s.

The band’s debut album MEA CULPA (means “My Fault” in Latin) celebrates the beauty of the early 90s thrash scene with original scores offering glimpses into the wonderful works that appeared some 30 years ago. While this album is short and just clocks in under 29 minutes, it’s like a veritable time machine into the past although at the time of release in 2006 it was only a decade removed from the peak of the thrash craze that started in the 80s and sorta peaked ten years later. This album was released on the Area 51 label which strangely is located in Colombia!

SYMBOLIC pretty much, uh well, symbolizes how much fun thrash metal of the early years was! This band’s main focus is on those crunchy galloping guitar riffs that stampede at high tempo frenzies much in the vein of early Megadeth, Forbidden, Overkill and Annihilator just to name a few however the musicians are all on top of their game with a heavy bass and drum rhythm section and excellent display of thrash vocals performed by Stanimar Stavrev who was made for the part. The addition of virtuosic guitar soloing is the stuff right out of the “Rust In Peace” era of Megadeath but this band is careful to stray to close to the classics and crafts very original sounding tunes.

MEA CULPA opens with a clean guitar arpeggiated intro piece titled “27 Prayer” that finds a clean guitar harmonizing with an electric guitar counterpart along with swishy Black Sea sounds of the waves against the shore. Beginning with “Overdose” the palm muting thrash riffs are unleashed and it’s an energetic frenzy for the duration. Packed with lightning fast thrash metal riffs, stellar drumming performances and a tight knit instrumental interplay, this band sounds like it emerged some time in 1989 and rode the first wave of thrash metal with bands like Testament or Sodom. The production is perfect as well with a nicely balanced mix that allows each instrument to be heard perfectly.

Added to the superb musicianship and perfectly delivered vocals, the tracks are all instantly addictive with nice hooks and catchy melodic constructs that just reek of top class act. If this band had emerged ten years earlier in a nation not impeded by the Iron Curtain antics of Moscow then perhaps it could’ve been one of the bigger acts of the era because SYMBOLIC has certainly mastered the art of thrashing like a motherfucker. This is a highly satisfying head banging experience throughout its run. The only flaw i can detect is that the intro is a bit too long and doesn’t blend in with the second track as well as it could but considering this band came from a far flung placed like Varna, Bulgaria and pretty much put all this together alone, overall MEA CULPA is a really impressive debut from this virtually unknown artist.