Nice. Four tracks of heavy metallic hardcore out of Sweden, over in a flash. The vocals are on the line between growling and shouting, and some of the riffing definitely hits on a nice midpaced death metal sort of stroll, but for the most part it's heavy chord progressions and straightforward NYHC styled song structures. I'd definitely tag this as being more inspired by the 90's brand of metalcore (but with slightly faster tempos and less chugga chugga breakdown stuff), and that's fine by me, because I love that shit. One listen to the mosh worthy intro to "Serpents of the Apocalypse" should do the trick, and if it doesn't just check out the solo break! "Demons" is a little more consistently fast paced and simplistic, so the breakdown jumps out a little more; while "Dead Man Walking" keeps things ever so slightly groovier, but in a very tolerable manner. For a quick demo I'm fine with the recording. The rhythm section definitely needs more low-end (I can barely hear the bass guitar), but the guitars are nice and thick and the vocals sound pretty good. It's fairly clear as well, so... minor adjustments would thicken it up nicely and smooth it over, but I've heard far worse than this from other bands' full-lengths. They've got a decent sound happening already. The CD-R comes in a xeroxed sleeve with high contrast artwork and clean text, so it's simple and effective, definitely not bad for a quick and inexpensive D.I.Y. effort. No lyrics are included, but song titles like "Dawn of the Dead" and "Dead Man Walking" suggest pretty bitter or aggressive subject matter. Hopefully these dudes will drop a full-length at some point soon. This is good stuff. Simple, to the point, no bullshit. Sign me up.
[self-released]
Running time - 10:26, Tracks: 4
[Notable tracks: Dawn of the Dead, Serpents of the Apocalypse]
One Life Taken - http://www.onelifetaken.tk
