Greenfly started back in 1992, and after releasing their only demo in 1994, they decided to split up. Dani and Ramon (both also in Haemorrhage) reanimated Greenfly and recorded some new material. Now it is time for their debut album. Second guitar is handled by Climber of Machetazos. Greenfly's suppurating soul still thinks, that time is the first half of 1990s. You can't kill the spirit.

Greenfly do not try off this retro-thing, they live it. The band's mixture of metallic extremities include many wonderful ingredients. But marvellous contents alone do not make wonderful piece of music. 'Hidden Pleasures...' is full of energy and joy of bashing out ugly metal, not so polished at all and with slightly inaccuracy in performing. And it is infectious, like plague itself. At least some of the music here must be from 1990s (well, Death's 'Born Dead' is even older, he). Musically, I'd say Greenfly are dark death metal. There's grind, doom, heavy and thrash metal influences, too, sometimes in one song. A lot of riffing, leads and soloing. However, it holds together well enough and it is easy to follow, still it takes a lot of playing to find every detail.

I hate 'Living beyond Suffering's HC vocals, but there's not very much of 'em and the song lasts for almost 10 minutes, which is a tad too long perhaps. Can't whine about anything else, practically. Most of the vocals by Monzon are brutal, guttural throat in many various ways. The lyrics are about modern societies and future possibilities. The production is practically timeless, even though clearly with 21st century punch.

This is such a soulful experience through the metal music history, that it should not leave anyone who likes old school metal cold. A lot of styles can be heard and the music reminds me of many great bands. 'Hidden Pleasures...' is a big fuck-you to many "metal" albums released nowadays, and also to many so-called "metal" bands. A very good debut album. It is tough job to write anything else about Greenfly. Except: They are fucking metal, if you still didn't get it!!!

Rating: 7½ (out of 10) ratings explained

Reviewed by Lane
05/27/2003 12:23