Not bad for a bunch of punks playing metal, eh?

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From DECIBEL: Get a good peep at the cover of Voetsek's second full-length and just take a guess as to what delights you might discover once it's spinning away in your CD player. Go ahead. Death metal? Black metal? Thrash? No, no, and sort of. Though this SF quartet started out playing mostly hardcore/fastcore/grindcore, with songs that never touched the minute mark, their latest features a couple that stretch beyond two (!) and an overall sound that can only be described as thrash-influenced hardcore/fastcore/grindcore. First thing you gotta know is that the lead vocalist is a woman, a burly gal named Ami Lawless who can spit out rapid-fire lyrics with the best of them. I mention this for no reason other than the fact that I didn't know said vocalist's gender and was initially a little freaked by what can best be described as her Eric Cartman-esque exhortations. Like the sound of her voice or not, Lawless uses what she has brilliantly. It ain't easy singing this fast and she keeps up with whatever the band lays down—from hugging thrash to blinding grindcore. Voetsek's infusion of thrash, whatever their motivation, is actually a really smart maneuver. For one thing, they're really good at it—they clearly know the genre well and the trash parts fit seamlessly with the faster stuff. Secondly, incorporating more restrained tempos makes the overall impact that much more remarkable all around; you'll actually be left with impression that there are some interesting songs here, instead of just a whole bunch of really fast ones. –Adem Tepedelen

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From the same issue of DECIBEL in the 'Call & Response' section, JARBOE says of 'Blueprint for the Perfect Circle Pit': Fast and frenzied. Seemed like 40 seconds. This track has a lot of different styles going on all at once. I hear hardcore punk interspersed with lightning-fast virtuoso-style guitar solos like Eddie Van Halen (played with his teeth?), sloganeering vocals and a bit of almost death metal-style growl vocals thrown in. Sounds genuine. They mean it. The best part for me is the sinister laugh at the end

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From MRR: The assigning crew must be slipping, because no matter which was you slice this one, it's metal. The cover looks like they stole it from KREATOR [it's an original Andrew Bouzikov, by the way—Voetsek eds.], with zombies doing their zombie thing among purple-ified ruins and a messianic cult figure shrouded in white beckoning you to do the zombie thing as well. It has metal production, metal lettering, and long metal hair…so yeah, it's metal. Anyway, VOETSEK is made up of punks who are playing metal, so I'll play nice and review it. Locals hearkening back to the late '80s of Bay area thrash with a hyper and high-pitched vocalist. I dare you to try and follow along with her while reading the lyrics. The guitar parts are ridiculously over the top, the drums are fast and remind me of VIO-LENCE—you know, another Bay Area metal band… Fuck it, you know you're going to buy it so stop reading this and contact the label right away so you can get a cool, gold-swirled copy like mine. (VL)

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From SHORT, FAST & LOUD! (Robert Collins reviewed it, by the way, in case you were wondering about possible nepotism from Athena, Ami, or Ben): It would seem that Bay Area thrash mongers VOETSEK went and got all growed up. This is a blurring assault that nods as heavily to classic DRI (think 'Dirty Rotten Album' era, though 'Blueprint for the Perfect Circle Pit' totally belongs on 'Thrash Zone') as it does to the obvious modern heavyweights (WASTE, TOXICHOLOCAUST, and the like). The lyrics touch on the serious ('Bully With a Badge,' 'Family Ties'), but there are still songs about drinking, circlepit instructional songs, and a plodding number about cutting off her mom's arms. I had to go back and consult a couple of older VOETSEK records to see if I was crazy or if they had actually progressed this much on 'Infernal Command' and it turns out they have. This is a tighter, more polished, more powerful record than they have delivered to date. The guitars sound like they were lifted from a Metal Blade studio session in '86, and Scotty has gone from a fun drummer to watch to a fucking stallion behind the kit. 17 tracks in just over 21 minutes, fans will be sold instantly., and this is the record that convinces everyone else that VOETSEK are a force.

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From EXCLAIM! Canada's Music AuthorityVoetsek are what thrash metal has been lacking for years. Even great bands responsible for its recent surge in popularity fail to provide what Infernal Command offers so readily. While not an exact replica of thrash's first wave (Testament, Exodus, etc.), these 17 tracks top out at 21 minutes yet have the same essence as that initial movement: an innovative approach and powerful delivery replete with speed, wit, attitude and aggression. Taking the rudimentary elements of thrash — an overbearing pace, crisp, attacking guitars — and coupling them with hints of punk attitude and traces of black metal's possessed vocal attack, Infernal Command possesses elements of Cryptic Slaughter, Mayhem and early Slayer. It's this twist on established parameters that makes Infernal Command unique yet perfectly fitting amongst the new wave. –Keith Carman

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From the GRIND & PUNISHMENT blog where we get called the 'Encino Man' of thrash…kind of like when some kid called us the 'Nirvana of grindcore' a few years back at Pointless FestVampire zombie thrasher punks art and power fucking violence cover of 'Strange Fruit?' Oh hell yeah. This co-ed kill squad's second full length (after a host of splits and EPs) slots nicely next to Crom and Battletorn as a reinvigorated crossover band that takes ridiculous music seriously. Hell, buy it for the song titles alone. 'W.W.L.D. (What Would Lemmy Do?),' 'Blueprint for the Perfect Circle Pit,' 'Self Righteous Fuckdom' and 'Plagued by the Winds of Conformity' – I dare you not to grin. More than penning a good line, frontwoman Ami Lawless and her four accessories before the fact breathlessly rip through 17 songs of DRI meets early Metallica at a Capitalist Casualties basement show despite her acquired taste vocals. She tends to remind me of my toddler nephew at his nap time whiniest. And just in case you needed one more reminder of how much San Francisco's richest blow since they sobered up and spent time getting in touch with their feelings, album standout 'Bully With a Badge' snaps along like 'Whiplash' before giving away to an Arabesque bit of Mastodon twin guitar goodness. Even 'Five Years in Iraq' lampoons 'Master of Puppets' with a slow mo vocal fade out. Unfortunately, when Lawless gets all political, such as the aforementioned 'Iraq,' the album gets dragged into the mire of tired cliché that saps the whole outing. Musically, Voetsek (which is Afrikaans for 'get lost' btw) just kill it. Guitarists Ben Reduction and the awesomely monickered Jef Leppard snake between each other's riffs and runs over Athena Dread's foot-on-the-monitor bass gallops and Scotty Karate's (another fucking awesome name) propulsive drumming. But, sweet Thor, those vocals -- that way lies madness. There are a lot of new jacks out there aping the thrash greats of the '80s but Voetsek are like the Encino Man of thrash (minus the gratuitous Pauly Shore but just as intentionally retarded), only now getting thawed out after a 20 year deep freeze, cinching up their bullet belts and taking thrash and fastcore to the sweaty, crowded basement where they belong. –Andrew Childers

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From CEREBRAL METALHEAD (cerebralmetalhead.com)Everything about Infernal Command screams '86 thrash, from the thunderous 'Raining Blood'-style tom beats that open the album to the midrange-heavy mix to the pastel undead (drawn by Municipal Waste/Fueled by Fire artist Andrei Bouzikov) that adorn the cover. But passing off San Francisco's Voetsek (whose name means 'fuck off!' in Afrikaans) as yet another thrash revival band would be a heinous mistake. If Vio-Lence and early Metallica are the bread and butter of Infernal Command, power violence gods Capitalist Casualties and Spazz are the meat and condiments. Voetsek amp up their thrash songs to ludicrous speeds, often rivaling Jon Chang's Hayaino Daisuki project for sheer velocity. No less impressive technically are the epileptic fits of 'Sorry Don't Mean Shit' and 'Rethinking the Paradigm,' both cluster bombs of time signature and tempo changes that slide in and explode far too fast to wrap your head around. The absurdist energy is bolstered by cheeky scene humor in 'W.W.L.D. (What Would Lemmy Do?)' and 'Blueprint For the Perfect Circle Pit' ('Keep your knees up high / And forearms a swinging / Shoulders hunched over'). True to their forbears though, silliness is but one weapon in Voetsek's arsenal. They hurl their lightspeed attacks against coppers ('Bully With a Badge') and the war machine ('5 Years in Iraq'), even performing an eerie thrash version of the immortal anti-lynching song 'Strange Fruit,' first made famous by Billie Holiday.Pissed-off, positive, excited, talented, caffeinated, political, asinine and totally serious, Voetsek has it all ways on Infernal Command, and gets it all right. Also of note: 2/5 of Voetsek is female, including vocal splatterizer Ami Lawless. Not that boobs have any effect, positive or negative, on the quality of Infernal Command [What is he talking about? Boobs are always a positive effect! -Voetsek eds.]. It's just another indication that Voetsek's breaking a lot of different molds here.===================================================
From audiodrome.it (rad Italian online zine)
Infernal Command is the title of the new album by Voetsek and summarize in a perfect way the inner essence of this band. Born in the San Francisco Bay Area in 2002, Voetsek are one of the best thrash-core acts around, a killer mix between iconoclast hardcore-punk aggression and sharp thrash-metal riffing. Completely outside any trend or poser attitude, these Bay Area thrashers hit the listeners with fast yet deadly anthems, due to a top-quality song writing able to concentrate a whole universe in just few beats. It’s rare to find a song lasting more than a pair of minutes, so there’s really no time to get annoyed, as Infernal Command is an album built around the original hardcore spirit of “play fast and keep it short”, without any guitar-hero self indulgent attitude or baroque mannerism. Also, nothing is missed inside these thrash-core pearls, from intros to solos, from great anthems to variations in rhytms, so nothing is left outside such a complete album. Here and there, Voetsek on Infernal Command reminded to me of seminal act Détente, both for the sharp sound and a unique ability in mixing an aggressive song writing with sudden melodic bits lost inside the violence of an urban riot. If along 2008 we already apreciated the new album by Cross Examination as a sign that thrash-core isn't dead yet, with Voetsek we reach the certainty that, outside businness and trends, music and attitude can keep it true and we can still find great albums able to strike deadly. Thrash till death!========================================================From METALREVIEW.COM: This co-ed bunch of crossover thrashers hails from San Francisco, and Infernal Command is their latest of two full-lengths to go along with a small slew of split records and EPs. This is my first exposure to what these ladies and gents do, and I’m impressed. I have an affinity for certain types of hardcore, and this type of metal-punk hybrid appeals to both my soft spot for hardcore and my longtime love for thrashing goodness.Voetsek’s origin in fastcore/power-violence shows through quickly--vocalist Ami Lawless has a frantic chattering yelp, one that I imagine will turn off some listeners, but one that I find kind of endearing. Her vocals are high-pitched and rapid-fire and cartoonish, running from mile-a-minute phrasing into protracted groaning screams.On the instrumental front, the band falls closer to the thrash side of the traditional crossover blueprint, blazing fast and furious through these 17 tracks. Only three tracks last longer than two minutes, and a few of them are grindcore-short, blink-three-times-and-you’ll-miss-‘em affairs. Guitarists Ben Reduction and Jef Leppard (brilliant name) hand in far tighter, more technical performances than I expected, with some particularly cool moments in the chugging midsection of "Plagued By The Winds Of Conformity" and the lead work of "Frozen Heart." Like most grindcore, the songs are largely devoid of any true structure—just riff after riff after scream after blast after riff—so expect some coolness, but little in the way of gang-chants or immediately memorable hooks beyond the occasional discernable song title whizzing by. The lyrical matter is alternately snotty and political—with song titles like "Blueprint For The Perfect Circle Pit" or "W.W.L.D. (What Would Lemmy Do?)" contrasted with "Five Years In Iraq" or "Bully With A Badge"—but a large part of the lyrics are indecipherable due to Lawless’ barking, so you’d be hard-pressed to know too much about any of them beyond that what Lemmy would do if he were me or he were you would be to bang all the bitches at your school…. My only complaint is that the best tracks on Infernal Command, aside from early highlight "Lemmy," arrive in a cluster towards the end of the disc—"Bully" with its interlocking guitar licks and half-time end section, "Iraq" with its pounding rhythms, and the venomous mid-tempo of "Self-Righteous Fuckdom." (Also, of note for you jazz-vocal fans, there’s even a cover of Billie Holliday’s "Strange Fruit," which was unexpected, to say the least.)Voetsek are a rougher, rawer throwback to the days of crossover—not as polished as, say, Municipal Waste. Those fans of the likes of Cryptic Slaughter, the Accused, Charles Bronson, or Spazz and/or those who appreciate both grind and thrash and who can tolerate some oddball vocals should give Infernal Command a shot.And for anyone who would like to expand their vocabulary of offensive expressions from southern Africa, the word "voetsek" is Afrikaans for "get lost" or "piss off."br />