Prestorika

When Prestorika’s first full-length albums opens with a drum-bass jam, you’re expecting major miracles but then ”˜Access Denied’ explodes into a familiar breakdown and you resign yourself to looking for the exceptional in a much-trodden soundscape. For the band, though, The Most Confidential Knowledge is a detour from their previous Metallica/Megadeth-inspired thrash sound, now venturing into speed-metal territory with melodic vocals and pinch-harmonic solos but it takes more than that to lift the sound out of the ordinary. Thankfully, the band finds it in the explosive ”˜Lost in You,’ a Eighties love song gone wrong, chock full of happy guitar runs and Annihilator-style riffs. ”˜Slow and Simple’ opens with what sounds like a clip from Leni Riefenstahl’s Triumph des Willens but is mostly unmemorable except for its solo. The galloping riffs of ”˜Black Eyed Priest’ are guaranteed to make it a mosh-pit favourite and power ballad ”˜The Destroyer’ has its moments, but the song that carries the album on its shoulders is the edgy ”˜No Sharps to Be’ where the vocals and musicianship reach their unexpected best. While the production is top-notch (thanks to the now ubiquitous Anupam Roy), and metalheads will find their fair share of aggression on this record, the album only truly shines when it breaks the accepted mould and those moments are few and far between.