Album review: Enforced – A Leap Into The Dark

Enforced are not a band to fuck around. Less so than normal, even, on this smash-and-grab six-track EP which arrives like a splash of gasoline to spike their fire after the frantic 18 months since last year's awesome third album War Remains.

Having already nailed their 100mph crossover formula – and still to show any kind of thrash faigue – it’s less about reinventing the wheel than painting it black, adding some bad-ass spikes and running it gleefully over anyone who dares get in their way.

Armageddon is the theme for opener Betting on The End, which throws together gallows humour (‘Scrape up all that you have left / And pray you'll hit it big / Blow up your retirement / Ignore all your kids’) and route-one riffs to exhilaratingly pessimistic effect. Deafening Heartbeats is even faster and more furious, rampaging with unstoppable momentum before a dread-drenched breakdown pulls us into the abyss like the best of Slayer. The epic title-track is the finest fresh offering here, though, unafraid to slow the pace for extended periods in the name of increased heaviness, and packing a pit-spinning midsection sure to inspire sheer chaos in the flesh.

A Leap Into The Dark’s back-end is all tantalising bonus material. ‘Remastered’ 2021 B-side Casket – originally recorded during the Kill Grid sessions – is 113 seconds of rough-hewn chaos that more than makes up for its scuffed production with a vicious willingness to go for the throat. Then covers of Obituary’s Deadly Intentions and English Dogs’ The Chase Is On showcase where the two sides of Enforced’s sound came from: the former’s primal bludgeon contrasting sweetly with the latter’s more fleet-footed sprint to the finish line.

Such unquelled urgency suggests that something more substantial from these modern metal masters is just over the horizon. For now, however, this is more than enough to sate the ravenous faithful.

Verdict: 4/5

For fans of: Power Trip, Inhuman Nature, Kreator

A Leap Into The Dark is out now via Century Media