Band:	Right Stripped
Album:	Absence Of Humanity
Style:	Progressive metal
Release date:	2010
A review by:	Bas

01. Phoenix
02. Silence The Hatred
03. Absence Of Humanity
04. Darkest Hour
05. Vindication
06. Our Ways
07. The Awakening
08. Forcing Isolation
09. Requiem
10. Of Saints And Martyrs
11. Demon Eyes
12. Silence The Hatred, Pt. 2
13. Soul Aflame

Absence Of Humanity is the third full-length release of the unsigned Michigan quartet Right Stripped. So what exactly are we working with here? The band plays a mix of mostly progressive metal leaning heavily on heavy, thrash and power metal along the way and gives it all a very 'American' sound. Think of a crossover of Iced Earth, Symphony X and a little bit of a random oldschool US thrash band of your choice and you'll be getting pretty close to Right Stripped.

Technically the band is solid as a rock. Especially the vocal-work is great, the band has some nice riffs and here and there a nice solo can be found too. As far as the songwriting is concerned, the band has a couple of cool songs and even catchy choruses. There is one glaring problem I do have with this release however. Despite the merging of different styles, the resulting amalgamation seems rather monotonous. After only a few songs the album starts sounding samey, even though the band tried to build some foreign elements like female guest vocals into the music. Apart from that the general song quality can fluctuate wildly between tracks too.

While I quite like most of the CD, I'm pretty sure that Absence Of Humanity would have been better if the band had just scraped three of four of the less interesting songs and shaved off half a minute of some others to heighten the general quality of the music.

Concluding: The albums as a whole isn't bad at all and definitely enjoyable for fans of heavy/progressive blends. However there are certainly some things the band could have done better. It's hard to pay attention to the music for an hour when quite a few songs sound very similar and deviate almost only in terms of quality.

Highlight: Requiem. Despite the criticism this record also features some fantastic pieces of work, this song being the prime example.