Game Over – Face The End

vote
7.5

• Band:
  GAME OVER
• Duration: 00:32:38
• Available from: 25/04/2025
• Label:

• Scarlet Records

Streaming not yet available

After a silence with a fairly sinister signals for a continuation of their activity – we mean the one between 2017 and 2023 – Game over left the momentum with the excellent “Hellframes”, a record that made them consent and frankly unexpected, to listen to what has been produced before then. A career, up to that moment, dotted with so much will and love for thrash metal, live and engaging live performances, but which seemed to relegate the Ferrara formation to a second -school role.
Until there, it had seemed to us that their efforts had not produced anything so striking, just pleasant or a little more. Then, in fact, it came to “Hellframes” to completely change the cards on the table: a deeper, more worked, articulated thrash metal, truly thick, even able to remember the metal in their best years, between wide -ranging songs and imbued with drama, a riffing as devastating as rich in suggestions and, the most important thing, a first -rate songwriting.
A year and a half later, “Face The End” reiterates the new dimension achieved by the formation of Emilian origin, which has now become a quintet with the entry of Danny Schiavina to the voice and Leonardo 'Leo' Molinari on bass, to replace the former singer/bassist Renato Chiccoli. In the meantime, no revolution intervened in the way of dealing with the composition, even if the new album sounds overall more essential and dry, drumming from the first to the last note, with atmospheric concessions relegated to “Crimson Waves”, moreover one of the best traces.
Let's say immediately that the new graft to the voice proves to be at the height of the role: the stamp is not very far from that of Chiccoli, nevertheless Schiavina has its own personality and rides in its own way the instrumental plots, with the arcignal passion and the attitude vehemently requested by a Thrash singer, remembering, individually, the earthquake John Falzone of the now dispersed in the Sabbie of the time.
To stand out again, and to instill brilliance everywhere, is a first -rate guitar work, between melodies full of pathos and feeling, a contemptuous riffing and high school solos. The affinities with “Hellframes” are strong in this sense, but in this album to dominate there is a slightly more light -hearted atmosphere, Caciarona, which at the first bars induces the strange feeling that the game over have taken a step back. This is not the case: the Stop'n'ngo Fair, Assalti Mosh, second anthemic voices that compose the first single “Lust for Blood” is thrash in the core and does not offer any type of surprise, yet it flows that it is a pleasure, Casinara, fast and incendiary such as thrash metal, removed all the sophistications of the case, it should be.
Of an 'evolved' idea of ​​Thrash, there is no shadow here, yet with the listening the enthusiasm goes to rise, precisely because the five draw on the fundamentals without making a mistake. The Capopopolo vocality of the new singer and the groove Stradaolo break everywhere, leaving the aforementioned solo to the aforementioned of varying and giving a touch of musicality. Metallica, Testament, Exodus are the first references for current game over, but as far as possible the group detaches just enough from the inspiring gods to play its game as best he succeeds.
The concatenation of stanzas, refrains and solos brings back to a listening experience without cerebralisms, big questions about how to interpret this or this other step: you listen, appreciate and crack with taste. “Grip time” on a side, let's say, more 'speed', and “lost in dysgrade” for those who love massive myidtempo, are two example of the effectiveness of these thrash formulas today. It is clear how much the instrumental qualities of individual musicians have grown, going hand in hand to more elaborate ideas and a conception of the less stereotyped genre than that of a few years ago.
We have a slight preference for the most composite plots and the most tortuous developments of some of the best episodes of “Hellframes”, such as “Path of Pain” and “Deliver US”, but also at this tour we can only admire the freshness of the game over. In an inflated genre, often weighed down with simple imitators with a great enthusiasm and poor ideas, the Emilians maintain the route and churn out an album to listen to repeated. Bravi.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D30W1IVGADQ