Deivos "Hostile Blood" CD
[Butchery]
Nice. This is raging brutal death metal from Poland with a great sense of technicality that never abandons strong songwriting. They actually have more in common with classic Florida death metal than they do with what's been going on in Poland (i.e. they don't sound like Vader or Decapitation or anything of that nature to me). All of the staples of the genre's finest are here: Burly low growls, lots of well handled speed and tremolo picking with a thrashy vibe, quick melodic lead breaks, flurries of notes and changes (but not so much that they lack direction), blast beats broken up by snazzy fills and appropriately flashy slower percussive rhythms, slow breakdowns (but not in a groovy manner at all), and so on. The feel is powerful, that's what makes them good, and what connects their music to a lot of those classic records from the early 90's. Really in a lot of ways it reminds me of the first two Deicide records, but these guys don't focus on intense speeds as much, and they fuck with some unexpected time signatures and such on rare occasion. Now, the recording is a slight hindrance, but barely. I can't finger what bothers me about it because my ears do tend to adjust to it, but I know the bass is really hard to make out, and there's a certain lack of definition to some of the elements. The guitars sound good and the riffs are pretty clear, but I would like to hear a crisper and more detailed mix that lets the rhythm section have more room and packs more of a punch. I can live with this, though. I don't think the layout is all that great, it's okay, but it's not a proper representation of the music. The cover art's alright, that's the most tolerable element, but the back cover looks horrible and too many fonts are used throughout the booklet, so space ends up going to waste. The clean, small font used for the lyrics is the best one, but the background textures of digitized bricks inside the booklet are totally cheesy. Understandably rough English aside, the lyrics are pretty good for death metal. There are a few lines that are somewhat immature or out of place, but for the most part the band is exploring some non-standard topics. "How they want our freedom when putting us in irons, Shit world's waiting for the blind, Antechamber of bliss supreme is their place to be in, Watch the liberators freeing them from life, Logistics of threat filled with subjugating doctrines, Feed on worms and praise us, lords 'til death do us part, Repel this fucking rot or be crushed between the grinding cogs..." Pound for pound this is a killer death metal record, and I could easily see this band moving on to bigger and better things. I hope they do, because this is a prime example of death metal making a fine return to form. Sadly the last two songs use a drum machine and sound like complete shit, so those two should not have been included - leaving you with basically a good 21-minute EP. But I won't fault them for that since I like the other five songs so much. Check this one out... (7/10)
Running time - 28:06, Tracks: 7
[Notable tracks: Hostile Blood, Scarcity of Suffering]
Butchery Music - http://www.butchery-music.com

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