Death Metal Reviews part 2

June 12th, 2008 by *--*

It has been about 1.5 years since my last Death Metal Reviews post. The time is ripe for a new one. I’ll handle some reasonably recent discs that have caught my attention, one way or the other….

Let’s go!

We start of with the new album by Swedish band Grave. A band that I have not really kept up with since their excellent first album ‘Into The Grave’ from 1991, everything I heard after that seemed to get increasingly weaker… (I must admit that I was conditioned by their grimey demo material that appeared in the tapetraders circuit quite sometime before their first album. And I absolutely loved that). They had quite some line-up troubles and I believe they have been calling it quits a few years ago. But back to 2008 now: the new album is called ‘Dominion VIII’  and I am very impressed by it. It hits all the right ‘old school death metal’ buttons. The tempo is quite high for a Grave album, the sound is crunchy, maybe a bit too muffled, but it really feels like classic Grave!! A very unsuspected return to form! Get it if you liked their old material
Listen

Bloodbath is also from Sweden. This band was not really known to me but started as a project by several members of Katatonia, Opeth and metal producer/musician Dan Swanö (who is no longer part of the project). Officially it was to be a ‘tribute to early death metal’… I don’t really hear that back in their mini album ‘Unblessing The Purity’ (March 2008).

 But it is very enjoyable fast technical death metal with quite brutal vocals. It reminds me most of Morbid Angel circa their ‘Covenant’ album, especially the contrast between the brutal blast-beat parts and the utterly melodic guitar solo work.  There is, of course, also some pointers to their Swedish nationality: some of the slower melodic parts bring to mind Entombed’s ‘Left Hand Path’ and ‘Clandestine’ days. Good stuff but not essential (Oh and there is a live album with DVD that came out this week.)
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It gets boring but Coldworker is also from Sweden… They are the band that the drummer Anders Jakobson of grindgods Nasum formed after the misfortunate 2004 tsunami death of their guitarist/singer Mieszko Talarczyk. Coldworker already proved to be a very nice band with their first album ‘The Contaminated Void’ but this new album, ‘Rotting Paradise’, is really stepping it up a few notches. Production is great and the tracks are all flowing very nicely. Great Grinding Death that somehow seems to groove.. sweet shit that is highly recommended!
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American band Abysmal Dawn does not really impress me much, I must admit. I can’t really get my finger on it exactly. But it sounds a bit soulless to me.. Production is very crisp and (too) clean for a death band. It somehow seems like an endless repeat of the same type of riffs that we all heard before. They can play, they can write some nice tracks but it does not ring any nice bell with me.. Not my type of stuff Listen

Of course I saved the best for last. With the proper ‘Trost op Nederland’-attitude I present you the Death Metal supergroup Hail Of Bullets! Consisting of the guitar players of the veteran band Thanatos, the drummer from Gorefest, the former bassplayer of Houwitser and last but certainly not least Martin van Drunen on ‘vocals’ (Pestilence, Asphyx). 

Damn this band shreds! It is everything you imagine it to be.. It reminds me most of Pestilence circa ‘The Consuming Impulse’. Martin’s vocals make you reach for the Strepsils straight away. The lyrics deal strictly with the second world war’s horrors of the eastern front. The production is fucking heavy. The album is mixed by the aforementioned Dan Swanö. And did I mention that they REALLY shred?? This is an instant classic. Nothing more to say.

Listen!!