With their fourth album,
UNSU, Frenchmen
Lyzanxia distinguish themselves for touching upon several separate styles of modern heavy metal -- thrash, death, hardcore metal, even a little black and nu-metal -- with commendable versatility and flexibility; yet without feeling the need to commit to any of them entirely. The dual-vocal attack of
David and
Franck Potvin pretty much guarantees variety from song to song and moment to moment, but if there's any easy comparison to be made for tracks like "Path Blade," "Answer Fields" and "Defensive Heart," it is that they share the same confluence of melodies and hooks with complex, but not overbearing arrangements, that has worked wonders in the early 2000s for Swedish post-deathsters like
In Flames,
Soilwork, and
Scar Symmetry. But
Lyzanxia wisely never stay put long enough to get boxed in so easily, recalling the Haunted's speed-thrashing purity with raging opener "Wise Counselor," echoing the precise, near-industrial riffing and techno elements of
Fear Factory on "X-Modification" and "Ascension," and churning out
Pantera-sized mega-grooves in "Early Phases," "Strength Core" and "Tedium." Both of the latter bands' qualities collide to perfection on the stunning "Bled Out" (which boasts the album's best and heaviest riff), and there are also a few surprising, out-of-nowhere moments like the title cut's Eastern flavored midsection, containing what sounds like a sitar! In short,
UNSU features a vast range of dovetailing styles supported by never less than solid songwriting whose only possible weakness may be a failure to connect with territorial-minded metalheads, for whom sub-sub-genre pigeonholing is, unfortunately, often innate to their fandom. Let's hope that's not the case here, because
UNSU deserves to be appreciated as a fine heavy metal album, plain and simple. ~ Eduardo Rivadavia