Description
Since 2018, France’s ANIMALIZE keep playing the kind of music that you (or your parents) may listened to 40 years ago. You know that “Heavy Metal” sound that appeared at a time when none of the band members was born. Well, they’re still doing it.
However, it is the band’s love of movies which arguably influence ANIMALIZE’s outlook the most and make the difference. For them, a visual identity and atmosphere – whether in their visual aesthetic, be it artwork or onstage, or especially their eventual videos – are of the utmost importance. Film also feeds their lyrics, quite often. The band states that such movies as Evil Dead, Mad Max, Pet Sematary, Masters of the Universe, and Terminator are among their most beloved.
While they would bring both to Technicolor climax with their debut album for DYING VICTIMS, Meat We Are Made Of, during the summer of 2022, ANIMALIZE nevertheless came out with all guns blazing two years prior on the preceding mini-album Tapes From the Crypt. With an eye-grabbing (and era-authentic) cover setting the stage, the originally-limited Tapes From the Crypt managed to make ANIMALIZE’s strengths plain and POWERFUL: cruising speed metal glory crossing swords with radio-ready traditional metal of a most mid-‘80s vintage. This is the sound of ANIMALIZE at their most straightforward– and, arguably, most accessible – for the proceeding debut full-length found them upping the vocal layering and especially the complexity considerably, but the gleam & glory of Tapes From the Crypt is undeniable, and undeniably fun. A snapshot of a still-boundless band finding their wings, now finally reissued: the saga of ANIMALIZE begins here!
