
Straight down the drain. The acoustic intro to "Cry" cedes to a basic series of slow, smudged riffs that serve only as a catalyst to the more interesting, swarthy vocal melody, while a mystical guitar line hides off in the backdrop. It's not awful, but really needed to be followed with some energy, which "Materialized" is not, just another pedestrian stream of dull chugged mutes that accompany similar vocals to the first track. There are many other indistinct tracks here, like the groovy but forgettable "So Weird" with its awkward chorus, "And We Don't Care" or "Show No Mercy", which sounds like a half-retread of "Materialized". At best, you get some modern power/thrash with similarities to late 90s Rage: "Squeeze My Skull and Brains" and the sad "Hopeless Ground", but even these sound like the band had thrown in the towel, and not fit to even shine the boots of The Reborn.
It's a terrible thing, when a band like Risk dishevels at the seams, after so many years, starting as Faithful Breath in the damned 70s. What's even sadder is that all of the members here seem to have given up on metal entirely after this recording, retiring to their families and other interests. Turpitude was not the proper note to leave on, almost as if the 'wrongdoing' implication of the title should be taken literally. But the saga of the monkey, crocodile, hippo and piranha will always live on through their inspirational debut album and the reasonable qualities of the follow-ups that led up to this one.
Verdict: Indifference [5.25/10]
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