Imagine thrash / death metal and think progressive rock parts and some odd rhythms and you pretty much have the essence of Alarum’s ‘Eventuality’. Alarum are a jazz fusion influenced progressive death/thrash metal band from Australia and in their current form they’ve been around since 1996. They have made a debut album called `Fluid Motion` in 1999, then a demo in 2002 and now their second real album with ‘Eventuality’. They make an odd combination of musical styles that do seem to work somehow. Now onto the main problem: what to think of it.

Let me start by saying that truly nowhere I hear the jazz fusion influence. There’s only odd interludes and strange parts, but to call it jazz fusion would be too much, and I may know because for some reason I watched a really long show about jazz last week.
The music on ‘Eventuality’ sounds something like 1980’s Metallica meets prog rock That means there’s a lot of speed and raw vocals, mixed with esoteric, echoey parts with clean guitars and singing. They make for a pretty good combination. It’s very atmospherical, but also powerful. The biggest problem however, is that you get the ‘weak in the knees’ feeling when a song two hours later refuses to stop resonating in your head.

That feeling is caused partly by the production. The progressive parts sound really good, but the louder, death/thrash parts, don’t really sound as heavy as they should. Then again it is highly likely that prog and death are just two hard to combine musical styles in production.
Instrumentally, Alarum is very, very good. The riffs are as they should be, the solo’s are quick and inventive, the drums versatile and powerful (although you don’t always hear the ‘powerful’) and the song structuring is competent and pretty original. There really isn’t much about this album not to like. Even the raw, thrashy 80’s vocals mixed with clean singing, work well.

Alarum have made a very good album with ‘Eventuality’. Everything they do, they do well. It’s beautiful and heavy. Only problem is that the heavy components don’t weigh as much as they should. And yes, one other problem, at what state of mind should one play this album? I have no clue. Still all credits to these Australians for creating a solid progressive thrash metal album.