Death
Deathchain are Finnish, they started out as a band called Winterwolf but changed their name to Deathchain after a big lineup change, personally I like Winterwolf better but hey that's just me. They produced two albums under that lineup until a change of singer at the end of 2006, the result of that change is here in the form of 'Cult of Death', I have to admit I haven't heard any of their previous material so I can't compare but the new singer fits the music like a glove.
The bands called 'Deathchain' and the albums called 'Cult of Death'. The first song is called Deathammer so have a guess what kind of band this is. No you're wrong it's not a kylie cover band, Deathchain are a Death metal band, no really.
This album kicks in with a brutal cacophony of sound that sets their stall out straight away, chaotic and infernal with a vocalist spitting gravel with every syllable. Guitars grinding and wheeling and a drum track that pounds along at 240 bpm ish. So far so metal.
The songs go through the Death metal rule book with the end of the world under Satan's hand, fallen priests, demons, black magic and for added spice necrophilia. Without the lyrics you wouldn't know any of this of course and if you're into your death metal you won't care, you just want something you can bob your perfectly straight long black hair to and this should fit the bill admirably.
This is a solid album but it suffers from the Death metal scourge of sameness, one song sounds much like another, there is the odd moment of inventiveness where the timing changes or it just breaks away from pounding along but overall you'd be hard pressed to tell one song from another. I'm not sure how much of a criticism this is as that's the way classic death metal is, if you're trying to break the boundaries then you're moving away from what makes death metal the parent frightening thing it is.
As it stands this is a well produced, solid album that isn't going to amaze you, it charges along like a noisy freight train that you can just get on for the ride and blot out the world for a while, you can read the lyrics and go a little deeper into their black world or you can listen to once and file under 'sounds average'.