Obliteration
Perpetual Decay
Tyrant Syndicate Production


From a country better known for its black metal than death comes Norway's Obliteration, now signed on Darkthrone's Tyrant Syndicate label and offering forth their first album 'Perpetual Decay'. Their crossover between death and thrash metal is a subgenre so overdone it's sometimes hard to find a band which stands out, but that's exactly what Obliteration has achieved here. This is one of the best metal albums I've heard all year, partly because it doesn't try too hard to be different, nor excessively "brutal".

Obliteration take a tried and true formula and muscle ahead of their peers with better riffs, gutsier vocals and an awesome sense of timing. The production's good, too, with just a touch of rawness adding to the riffs' already abrasive and frenzied assault. At times, 'Perpetual Decay' seems like a perfect companion to Deicide's latest album, in that it harks back to the thrashier, oldschool death metal sound while maintaining a biting modern edge. It's very impressive considering the band's relative youth and inexperience.

The sound's familiarity isn't necessarily a bad thing. Instead it's almost a breath of fresh air in a way. It's a reminder that this brand of metal is still alive and well among the next generation of upcoming bands and that it's capable of being reproduced without resorting to blatantly ripping off the genre's originators. Well, maybe there's just a wee little bit of that. Still, the riffs are catchy without being overproduced or cute and the vocals sound sicker and gutsier than most... with perhaps the odd touch of the Warner Bros' Tasmanian Devil, too. I suppose their gulping, guttural presence could get a bit tedious over time, but the album itself is short and punchy and they don't bring it down much at all. Definitely check these guys out, whether you're living in the past or just plain living in ignorance of it.

Mike Cross