It’s to my eternal shame that I haven’t got this review online sooner, I received the album just before Xmas and with the ensuing break it appears a little later than I would have liked. French quintet Bomb Scare Crew released this, their debut cd in mid November and it’s an absolute stormer. Firmly entrenched in the Death/Power/Thrash Metal genre it stands well with anything in the style that I’ve heard for some time. Recorded in the up and coming Towersound studios “Reign Of The Sharks” is a heavy, technical, gore fest of the highest order. A quick look at their website www.bombscarecrew.com doesn’t give a huge amount of info of the individual members, but judging by the photo’s they are a group of early twenties social misfits with a musical goal and an obvious drive to get their collective angst into the public domain. 

I’ll make no bones about it, these guys really mean it. The production quality is top notch and the strength of the eleven tunes on offer is brutal. Lead throat Carlo’s growling delivery makes it difficult to tell whether the songs are in English or French, the website features French lyrics but the cd has English titles and my long forgotten O level French means I’m struggling to translate. Suffice to say that with titles like “Mum Is A Whore” and “Gnawed By Pain”, we’re not talking about love songs.  

As an album, it works well in creating a sense of genuine anger; staccato guitars blended with the machine gun battery rhythm section produce a crushing sound and the feeling of a streetwise band with a (anti) social message. “Humiliation” features a spoken word (in English) intro and a sense of foreboding, which is evident throughout and leads me to think that they would do well to feature English lyrics on the site; I suspect that their message is one that is worth understanding.  

If I have a criticism, it would be the band’s name, in the age of global terrorism, the more conservative members of the community (distributors, promoters etc) may well shy away from such an obvious moniker (that may well be the band’s overall point) but just a thought. “Reign Of The Sharks” weighs in at a touch over forty-five minutes and is absolute quality, the band are desperately seeking a distributor outside of France and I genuinely hope somebody picks them up. This album is too good for the rest of the world to miss out, with luck they’ll find a decent support slot with a “name” band and we could see them in the UK sometime soon.

Let us know your views on 'Reign Of The Sharks'

Track List

Payback Time
Recidivist
Crewsader
Piss On The Flag
Mum Is A Whore
Gnawed By Pain
No man's Land
Bomb Scare Crew
Why
Humiliation
Reign Of The Sharks

Line Up

Carlo - Vocals
Gilles - Guitars
Kuz - Guitars
Thom - Bass
Simon - Drums