10

Hell Has Been Unleashed

Now this is exciting stuff! This entire album is full of well written, well performed and exceptionally well-screamed music, peaking at 'Godspeed from your Deathbed', which is an enticing blend of ferocity and technicality. Hell Within can, to a certain extent, be compared to Killswitch Engage, using a similar brutality verses melody mixture, but Hell Within's two opposing elements come much closer together than Killswitch Engage's ever did. Towards the end of their latest album, it felt as if Killswitch were simply switching between the two and ticking them off as they went. By way of contrast, Hell Within have kept the two much more entwined, and as a result successfully dodge the usual dull-verse section that a lot of these bands suffer from.

Aside from 'Godspeed From Your Deathbed', there's the astoundingly impressive 'Bleeding Me Black' and 'Open Eyes To Open Wounds', both incredibly unique takes on what could have been another album on the shelf and puts it squarely in the centre of your CD rack. It's clear from this that it's not just music written with built-in anger. You can tell the musicians were giving it their all during recording, you can feel the incredible speed of the drumming reverberating around your head, pummelling into you the exceptionally complex rhythm the rest of the song spans.

The best way to sum this up is: If you've been enjoying Killswitch Engage, pick up this album. If you like most of what Lifeforce Records generate, pick up this album. If neither of these apply to you, pick up this album anyway. You'll thank me later. If you can't do that, head over to the Hell Within site and give their samples a try. There's some exceptionally well-executed music there.