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Amken - 'Adrenaline Shot' - EP - 2014

Amken is a brand new thrash quartet rising from the Greek underground basements to provoke every thrasher’s taste for spiced up metal joy. The band was originally formed in 2011 in Athens, a place where many new bands appear and a real struggle is required to stand out from the bunch. By not, Amken gave the metal world only one release in 2014 named Adrenaline Shot. This EP is the first appearance by which the band is going to be ‘judged’ further on in their careers. It was self-released in 2014 and afterwards the same songs were featured on EBM’s Records split release with Skull Crusher in May, 2015. One of the greater things about this band is the live activity they maintain, playing vast number of shows all around their homeland, as well as some appearances abroad. Some of the ‘bigger’ names they shared stage with are Bio-cancer, Six Feet Under, Skull Fist, Reactory and Planet of Zeus. The band photos implicate the fact that Giannis Karakoulias (Guitars), Sokratis Bebis (Drums), Vasilis Chytiris (Bass) and Vanias Apostolopoulos (Vocals/Guitars) tend to trend up the original 80’s thrash metal dressing code, which for me usually is a sign of dedication to the work they are doing, thus not being the most important aspect of one bands image. Amken have a reputation of having descent energy boosted live appearance with the old and gold youth movement ideology. Prior to the first full-length coming up this year, let’s take a look at the short release they already put their efforts to.

Adrenaline Shot sums up to approximately 20 minutes of playing time divided in four songs. The album cover was kind of expected for this type of young speed/thrash based band – zombie in a wheelchair, half-sexy nurse driving him, some dead bodies, blood guts in the background (never gets old). The music is a good mixture of 80’s bay area thrash and the bit older German thrash metal. Actually, it depends on the songs. The opener Adrenaline shot is typical bay area oriented track, with straight forward speed motion and simple riffs. It has some good leads and amazing solos. The solos progress to a better version in the second song God’s asleep. This one is quite ‘harder’ and ‘more mature’ composition. The dynamics are slower and more complicated, in the way old Kreator slow tracks were made. Probably it is my favorite one here. The follow up Nightmares returns to the original fast pace, with occasional downers almost to the point of breakdowns. So far the originality has been kept. It seems they really worked hard on each and every song, while trying to make them connected in a release. The finisher is Zombie pets and it is as good as the previous songs. It is the closest one to the German oriented thrash metal and has in-depth humoristic lyrics. Generally the band tried to make the music as best as they can, while the lyrics were kind of neglected. To sum up, I liked Adrenaline Shot and I will keep up with the band’s work, I am sure they have a great future in the metal scene.