The album opens with electro instrumental {51/50} which has acted as their stage introduction backing in most shows since the initial single release. The piece makes it clear from the off Blood Youth have got a whole lot darker and heavier since 2017's Beyond Repair was hitting airwaves.
As the flow breaks into lead single Starve, it's clear they have progressed. The song is clearly still very obviously Blood Youth, but it seems the verses and melodies go harder than ever before; the bridge is the first real sign of a departure from their old style rather than a purer essence of what they did before. Cut Me Open is the first true, gritty look into the new material, and this is where things start to get really heavy. Pounding drums and chugging guitars instantly chop down all expectations in a no-holds-barred assault on the senses.
Where Parasite's lilting doom was pretty much the heaviest thing on Beyond Repair, over half this album is so much more terrifying it can't even be seen in the rear view mirror. Nerve features a very nu-metal lo-fi vocal verse and eerie chorus, The Answer is fully screamed other than a double chorus in the middle, and Visitant has a chugging brutality that Blood Youth have never even come close to before. The chorus of the latter just demonstrates quite how versatile frontman Kaya Tarsus' voice really is, stretching for some huge high notes.
Exhale closes the album with a length of over 11 minutes, seeming to explore the entirety of the band's sound throughout their career. Opening with a static sound and screams of 'my world is dying', the pulsating and dense metal groove fade into a dystopian decay to bring closure to the despair.
There are very few albums that could be played in full live with one continuous pit but Starve may just be the heaviest album of 2017 - Slipknot, watch your backs. For older fans, it may take a couple of listens to quite get heads around quite how different some of it is but the truth is brilliance in heavy music.
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