Run for your lives, people, or at least try and get a good headshot in, because Send More Paramedics are back with their brand new album 'The Awakening'. You can rest assured that they still want to ingest your cranial juices after overpowering you with their arsenal of psychotic thrash riffs. The rotting quartet were exhumed in May 06 and securely shipped into the studio to record what's going to be another landmark album for the band. The result, 15 tracks of bone crunching destruction that show Send More Paramedics are a greater threat to humanity than previously thought. Along with this murderous thrash onslaught there will also be a synth and orchestral 80s horror film instrumental soundtrack bonus CD (in the vein of John Carpenter).
The Awakening is based on a concept-scenario for an imaginary film to which the bonus cd is the soundtrack. How did they find the time? Well, the dead have to keep busy doing something...
Jeff Walker & Ken Owen from legendary UK death metallers Carcass risked their lives adding back up vocals on 2 of the tracks on the album.
The Awakening is also backed up by amazing original artwork from GamesWorkshop legend Stefan Kopinski (www.stefankopinski.com).
The undead are on the march and, this time, nothing can stop them....
Send More Paramedics started life as a diseased limb of a side-project that proved contagious before necrosis set in, so now they're busy running on demented instinct, like the Misfits' metal licking hellspawn at an all night halloween party. you'd applaud them for foisting their gut feeling upon us, except in SMP's universe a gut feeling is two fistfuls of entrails. And it's hard to clap when you're holding that.
From it's movie poser artwork to the loose narrative running through each song, 'The Awakening' is their most accomplished work to date.
Included is a bonus disc that acts as a creepy, atmospheric chaser to the hardcore schlock-rock shellfire of the main album. It lacks the same impact, obviously, but is another statement of intent from a band who could merely have settled for being a novelty act but instead chose to turn themselves into something more considered, pulsating and entertaining.
Without a catchy chorus, a big budget or a compromise in sight, Send More Paramedics have created a suitable monster of a record that, fittingly engages with hearts and minds after it's torn them from chests and heads.
Big Cheese 4.5/5
Blood-soaked beast of a third album from the zombie-core pioneers Oh shit, it looks like the joke's over. When Send More Paramedics first unleashed their obsessions with 80's thrash/hardcore and classic splatter films on an unsuspecting public back in 2001, a few of us were foolish enough to write them off as a novelty band. Well, it seems that the last laugh is theirs; for not only is 'The Awakening' themed around REAL-LIFE scientific predictions of the mass zombification of humanity (ulp!), it also features some of the finest Slayer-meets-DRI thrash anthems to have ever assaulted these mortal ears. Combined with a bonus CD featuring an excellent 80's-style instrumental horror soundtrack, it makes a very strong case for the undead inheriting the earth. Ah well, if you can't beat 'em, join 'em - mine's a pint of blood and spicy brainburgers.
Rocksound 8/10
Zombiecore lurches on, ragged but ravenous with an evil look in its vacant, bloodshot eye. SMP are back with a double-disc concept album, the first of which exhibits their gloriously sinister hardcore thrash that taps into nearly every heavy metal cliche yet in a way that's such damn fun you can only love it, and the second of which is a synth-laden instrumental affair that soundtracks the ghoulish story upon which the album is based. The deranged vocals and screaming solo of 'Virulence' and the breakneck 'This Crowd Is Crushing Me' will drag you kicking and screaming into their twisted, macabre (under)world from which you won't wish to escape. 'Save your soul', scream vocalist B'Hellmouth on the opening cut. You can run but you can't hide!
Send More Paramedics - A Feast For The Fallen
Send More Paramedics - The Hallowed And The Heathen
Send More Paramedics - The Hallowed And The Heathen (Picture Disc)
Send More Paramedics / Zombie Apocalypse- Tales Told By Dead Men
Send More Paramedics - The Awakenings
Send More Paramedics / Gallows / Feed The Rhino / Wounds - Unearth:Possessed 10" Vinyl