Thankfully, this is not the case with _Afterburner_. With their former frontwoman Rachel now out of the picture and the band's erstwhile drummer Aad manning the vocal booth, Sinister's comeback record is a return to form in every sense of the word. Unlike 2003's _Savage or Grace_ -- a record that had neither the songs nor the production to be anything but mediocre -- the likes of "Altruistic Suicide", "Men Down" and "Into Submission" are sprawling, aggressive beasts, bristling with atmosphere and riffery that casts a courteous glance to the old school, but almost always hits the mark dead on.

It's true that not all of the album's fourty five minutes is as stunning as its finest moments, and although it's generally an excellent album, it does not quite hit the same creative peaks of the band's first three full-lengths. When it comes to return efforts though, this is most definitely one of the genre's more convincing.