Thousand Oaks – Hell Is Empty 10″ (Mud Cake Records)

Italian bone-crushing skate punk machinery is back with another banging material. Thousand Oaks are paving their way to creme de la creme of the Europian skate punk scene by delivering technically precise punk rock sound that demands your full attention while listening. Their latest offering to the broader audience serves as the proper continuation of their previous recording called Bound For Destruction but also delivers some innovations into the sound of the group. Like on their previous records, you can expect nothing but loads of extraordinary musicianship and entertainment, followed by the tremendous dynamics.

Hell Is Empty comprises of six compelling skate punk numbers that are bursting in all its glory with very delicate harmonizations, powerful guitar shreds, intense basslines, and tremendously dynamic drumming performance. Right with the initial beats of this record, Thousand Oaks are promising loads of listening pleasures through perfectly executed skate punk sound. Everything about these numbers is thoughtfully planned, and you’ll notice how the group spent quite an amount of time considering every possible detail of these songs. Guitars are offering loads of polyphonous maneuvers through skillfully performed dualities. Thousand Oaks fully stacked their new compositions with ear-appealing arpeggiated sequences, various melodic technicalities, and robust guitar shreddings. A full specter of delightful melodic thematics are racing through the complete recording with such entanglement and precision.

The profoundly energetic rhythm section enhances these melodic maneuvers with massive movements, complex enough to perpetuate guitar works, but also retains remaining instrumentations in unifying harmony. The bass guitar tone balances between addictively chunky and pleasant warm sound. Intelligently performed basslines are providing massive support to both guitars, but this essential instrument takes some spare time to contribute technicalities that are pairing to the marvelous guitar works. Nothing would sound exceptionally dynamic without a remarkable drumming performance that offers a wide span of profoundly detailed rhythmical acrobatics, compelling accentuations, and blistering drum fills. The engaging vocal of Alex Gavazzi contributes to the beforementioned orchestrations with another layer of pleasing chants, while the remaining portion of the group takes the choir duties. These chants are encompassing the complete storyline in an entirely detailed manner.

Like on their previous recordings, Thousand Oaks has invested all the blood, sweat, and tears in this material. Their effort is unquestionably notable during these six enormously powerful skate punk numbers, which are bursting with subtle dosages of sincere emotiveness. For those who missed their engaging music till now, Thousand Oaks are resembling the sound of Satanic Surfers, Belvedere, Atlas Losing Grip, A Wilhelm Scream, Propagandhi, Adhesive, but you’ll be blown away by the uniqueness and sheer amounts of the energy these guys invested in their newest material. Hell Is Empty comes on a 10″ vinyl record by Mud Cake Records (Germany), available in a couple variants such as coke bottle clear limited to 150, transparent red/black splatter limited to 150, and standard black vinyl limited to 100 copies. The mini-album is also available on compact discs by Disconnect Disconnect Records (UK), Fast Decade Records (Finland), Milestone Sounds (Japan), No Reason Records (Italy), and Punk & Disorderly Records (Canada).