By: Anders

Posted: Aug 13, 2005

Brutal, gore-drenched and ripping death metal is blooming in Germany these years. Many bands down there deliver brutal and hardboiled death metal, straight out the high way, with a lot of American influences, but mature and well written, so it doesn't come of as a rip off.

One of those bands is Spawn. They are now ready with their second full length album "Human Toxin". The first thing one notice is the evident influence from Cannibal Corpse, like most other bands in this sub-genre. But besides that, Spawn has many more strings to play on. The basic compositions are straight ahead, blasting double bass attacks, direct riffs with some great leads, pounding bass lines and a deep and mean growl. The variation of the pace is nice, there is a lot of mid-tempo bashing and more blasting, the drumming is quite interesting without being breathtaking.

The riffing is precise and both very catchy and lethal, you very often catch yourself in banging away to the music. The guitar playing has the straight forwardness of Cannibal Corpse, the technical groove of Suffocation and the disharmonic moments of Immolation and Incantation. The band excels in groovy hooks both with the riffs and with the vocals, and the great catchy feature with the growled "chorus/choir", in 'Hemoglobin'.

Production-wise the album is as expected. There is a good punch in the base of the songs, the bass drums kicks hard and the bass makes noise. The guitars are sharp and the vocals in the front. The sound is dark and quite complex, and that is suiting in this case.

This is a very decent death metal release, all the old great deeds from the founders of this type of blasting and gore-ridden death metal, blended up with a lot of other elements and some identity of their own. I have enjoyed listening to "Human Toxin" a lot and if you’re into death metal, you’ll enjoy it as well.

Rating: 7/10

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