This record was advertised us as „pure GrindThrash brutality and technical Death Metal for real men!“ (Thanks a lot, Cal ;)). The half baked syndrome returned to the wild many years ago and my few chest hairs stands for the evolution away from a Neanderthal towards civilization. Also Raptus doesn’t changes anything in evolution-theory. But what Raptus manages excellent is to impress! Granted, the Swiss dudes based in Winterthur (greetings to the Salzhaus at this point!) whizzed past me since founding back in 1996. Whizzed past is the right keyword: this is the third full-length album released by PUNISH and these guys really know what it means to play technical Death Metal – steady full throttle on high standard! I have basically difficulties with the catchy character of tracks in this genre. PUNISH disabuse me again and again over the whole playing time of this album. Despite the speed, because of this the needle acts in supersonic-speed-range, riffs are given which take care for a certain recognition value and which could colonize in Thrash or Black Metal. Of course a good dose of Dr. Prog is administered. And how it is appropriate for good medicine, it strikes and has a hand in well-being. Nothing is overdosed or progged to Death, in fact Raptus settles down the mentioned facets and takes off like as a mighty projectile. What comes across quite poorly are the vocals presented in two voices. On the one hand growls right out of the standard drawer are introduced and on the other hand one is nagging like Mille Petrozza with a drink of Black Metal in his lungs. This alternation is definitely good in its basic idea; however the vocals are too separated out from the homogeneous main-view and especially the deep vocals are way not thrilling enough. And because PUNISH wants to stand out of the broad mass or maybe just to reach more metal heads through the internet, the complete Raptus CD is now available for free download in 192kBit/s-quality at their homepage. So, check out a massive technical Death Metal release with a clear conscience!