No Quarter Given’s debut album The Embodiment Begins fits firmly into the heavy metal camp, although the band describe themselves as having a blend of thrash and hardcore incorporated into their music. Every band at the moment seems to want to incorporate an instrumental opening to albums, and No Quarter Given are no different, as title track ‘The Embodiment Begins’ kicks things with a minute of slow melodic guitar before the onslaught that is ‘Program Divinity’ hits.  This has the band grabbing you by the throat with the fast pummelling drums and vocalist Hawk’s growls, which, for a lot of the time, are reminiscent of Lamb Of God’s Randy Blythe. 

The album stays more or less along the same lines throughout, ‘Dystopia’ and ‘The Sedition’ do have some noticeable breakdowns and the band throw in some great The Haunted style riffs on ‘Rusted Knives’, and some In Flames influenced guitar at the start of ‘Ascenion Level’.  However they don't vary their sound too much from what has come before. In fact the album is consistent, there are no peaks or troughs, every song is as good as the last, this does however mean that there are no songs that manage to really grab your attention. 

Although the band slot in some great guitar solos on many of the songs, some of the guitar work does sound that bit overpowered by the in your face drumming and there's that nagging feeling that you have heard most of it many times before.  That said, The Embodiment Begins is a solid debut effort that will, without doubt, win No Quarter Given some new fans and set things up nicely for the Cornish band.

Darren Brushneen