Every new release by Sweden’s Nasum instantly becomes an obsession of mine. Over the past 12 months I’ve easily listened to their previous full length effort, Helvete, more than any other grind album. I’d bought several t-shirts and hoodies and regularly have them spinning in my iPod at ridiculous volumes while riding the Skytrain to downtown Vancouver. To say I’m a Nasum fanatic is pretty accurate, so, suffice it to say, when Shift was released last year, I’d already had one pre-ordered and was eagerly anticipating getting it in my grubby little hands, but, thankfully I didn’t even need to wait until then, as the album had been circulating the web for quite some time prior to it’s release. My immediate reaction to the album was mixed, while I loved the production and overall sound, I felt a little let down by the overall songwriting and never really got into the album that much and set it aside for several months. In the time I’d put it aside, a lot had changed; in December a tsunami swept through coastal Asian countries carrying many souls along with it, including that of Nasum front man Mieszko Talarcyzk. I have to admit that after the incident I’d basically completely stopped listening to the band for the first few months of 2005. Having met the man only once, I can’t say I felt a huge personal loss, but I did feel saddened that one of my favorite musicians would no longer be around to shred my eardrums to pieces and it took a while before I felt the urge to listen to the band once again. When the urge finally returned and I gave Shift a second chance, I’ll admit my original opinion changed slightly as I paid closer attention to the release than before. The group continues their torrid pace from their past two efforts, 2003’s Helvete and 2000’s Human 2.0, only this time around they focused mostly on keeping the album at a higher speed for the majority, shredding along like a hive of angry bees with Mieszko’s shrieks tearing through the blazing wall of sound. While the previous two efforts had a handful of slower, softer tracks, Shift is a straight forward razor to the throat and kick to the teeth of sheer grind, with each track clocking in at less than 2:30. Shift does contain a few slower tracks, like "Wrath" and "Fight Terror With Terror", but they lack that "something" that made the older slower tracks worthy of repeated listens. My basic original impression of the effort remains the same as it was the first time I heard it; Shift is a great blazing grind album, but it doesn’t really offer the variety of past releases, and, overall, isn’t really as enjoyable, however, considering it is a Nasum effort, it’s still a great slab of music and definitely worth the occasional listen. Though this review may be short on description, honestly, if you haven’t heard Nasum before, you’re obviously an ass poseur and need to go buy Human 2.0 and Inhale/Exhale immediately, and if you have heard them before, you should already know what to expect. While many people may like to think Mieszko is up in the clouds, I like to prefer thinking of him dwelling beneath the surface torturing country fans with endless, relentless grinding.

Written By: Teufel