By: Anders

Posted: Jan 6, 2006

This is yet a Swiss band I haven't heard of, they've been around since 1997, and this is their second full length album, the first on Massacre Records though. The quintet is delivering heavy and punishing death metal, they are borrowing a bit from the Floridian style and a bit from the old school European death metal as well, old school crunchy, grinding and straight forward death metal is what their game is about.

Right from the disc starts to it 35 minutes later stops the level of intensity is high and quite brutal, the guitar riffs are grinding their way through the piles of critical statements concerning the state of the society, Judging from the song titles and the few sampled vocal pieces here and there, the theme on the album is political and quite critical towards today's world order. And in that context does the brutal and grinding music fit very well.

Musically and composition-wise the album they might not seem that innovative and varied through-out the album. Though the music has the needed energy, if not more and a great level of intensity that keeps the listener bound to the speakers. Besides that the musical efforts in the single songs are quite varied, the guitar sound stays the same, though there are delivered some good and hooking riffs. The drumming is good and brutal, hard hitting, a lot of kick drumming, the snare-drum gets blasted a lot and the crash-cymbals are getting a good beating, and the change of pace and the drum breaks are good and well-used. The growl is good and catches quickly on the listener, good and dark and quite guttural with an evil snarl.

This is a good and brutal death metal album, a good start of the year, hard-hitting, brutal and punishing, just like I dig my death metal. A good bland of the dirty deeds delivered by e.g. Six Feet Under, Obituary, Bolt Thrower and so forth. The production has been handled by J.F. Dagenais known for his guitar-havoc in Kataklysm and several other production-jobs, and he has done well, the sound is dark and crunchy and leaves the speakers as an out of control freight train… just like music… and that is how this should be delivered, like a hard blow to the skull!

Rating: 8/10

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