Distant thunder and the ever growing sound of cicadas fills the speakers for a few moments before memorable, Electric Wizard influenced riffs (from the tandem team of Garret Morris and ex-Alabama Thunderpussy guitarist Asechiah Bogdan) make their presence known on the opening track, “Black Candles.” The rhythm section (Ryan Wolfe on drums and Nathan Hilbish on bass) rumbles as Cottrell wails in the distance (yet is clearly heard in the production) and the riffs deliver bowel churning power. Mournful and full, this song carries some serious weight with it — be sure to check out the soulful lead about halfway through. The opening riffs to “Libusen” carry an Electric Wizard feel, as well, but Windhand do well to make the sound their own with thundering bass and Cottrell’s ethereal vocals.

It’s not until “Heap Wolves” that we really get some dynamic interaction between the music and vocals, as Cottrell’s wailing weaves in and out amongst the buzzing guitars and plodding rhythms. This is also one of the thicker, more suffocating songs on the album, as well as the shortest at just under five minutes run time. The 10 minute plus “Summon the Moon” delivers a solid opening bass run before Windhand get down to business with crawling riffs and an even more psychedelic delivery from Cottrell that gives the overall song a creepy vibe. The song also has a catchy chorus that you’ll soon be singing along with.

Album closer and immensely awesome “Winter Sun” opens up slowly with ambient wind and noise for a minute to build the anticipation of what’s to come. And what does arrive is an initial avalanche of slow moving riffs as the band slowly build to a solid (though crawling) groove as Cottrell’s vocals come in with a bit more of a rock swagger, especially during the infectious chorus. This is one hell of a catchy track. The lead around the six minute mark is sick as hell, fitting in with this doom dirge nicely. The stretch of mayhem between nine and ten minutes carries plenty of guitar noise and background growls — not sure if that’s Cottrell or another member of the band, but it’s a nice addition to the track.

When you have a unique voice like Windhand it doesn’t make a difference how much Black Sabbath you wear on your sleeve. The music on this band’s debut is infectious, dense and powerful, but it’s Cottrell’s delivery that really makes it something to remember. I’ve been playing these five songs over and over the past couple of weeks. One play on your part and you’ll see why.

Once the introductory “Dawn of a New Era” and it’s militaristic drum march have passed, we’re kicked in the teeth with the ferocious and thick “The Dark Army.” Double barrel drums blast like no tomorrow as creative and technical riffing fill the air prior to the arrival of Aad Klooserwaard’ guttural vocals. The song is just as perfect as you can get in combining two worlds/times of metal into one cohesive auditory attack. It sets the tone for the rest of the album as Supreme Pain deliver manic, blistering drums, head-nodding groove (“The Fallen Kingdom”) and an unrelenting delivery. It’s not all go go go, however. You do get your moments of respite amongst the thrashing mayhem.

“Damned Creation” settles into some seriously chugging groove that’s interspersed with plenty of double kick drum work to vary the tempo. The relentless nature of the music on this album makes it fly by quickly as songs like “Treasonous Disease,” “Spiritual Sickness” and “Putrefied Beauty” (an absolute beast of a song, by the way) fly by at blinding speeds. That’s not to say they’re not memorable — each track has some killer elements, but for the most part they are single minded in their focus. “Trapped in Heresy” and the title track slow things down a bit with more atmosphere and measured aggression.

Divine Incarnation sees this band of death dealing miscreants at their best. Each track is furious and speedy, yet contains within itself memorable sequences that stick with you for a good long while. The end result of the band’s combination of influences (old and new) is an album that may be a little one-dimensional at times, but it’s also an album that delivers some grade-A death metal. I’ve been spinning this one for a while now and suggest you do the same.

Once “To Armageddon” gets off to a raucous start, you notice immediately that the production of this album is raw as fuck. The band has always had a less-than-polished production on their releases, but this one seems to have been dragged behind a malevolent semi hell bent on putting as many miles on his transmission as possible. This shit just sounds as though it’s been through Hell and back. “The Plague and the World it Made” is the only song from the band’s last EP to appear on this album and it’s delivered just as well as I remembered, except of course for the gravelly production — I can’t get over how well this lo-fi feel fits the music.

The opening guitar work to “Come Winter” is memorable and catchy as fuck as the guys descend into a bludgeoning mass of riffs and thundering rhythms. It’s a slower moving track, but damn it if it’s not catchier than gonorrhea at a GWAR concert. “Your Final Demise” is a devastating rash of buzzed out guitars and relentless drums as the band goes for the balls with low end guitars and guttural growls.

The catchy riffage of “Bloodfalls,” the utter pounding of “Another State of Decay” — incidentally one of my favorite tracks — and the title track’s thrashtastic riffs are not to be missed. The guys do a fine job of not getting mired down in the buzz-sawing riffs, injecting a little piano (“Stillborn in a Dying World”) and a couple of movie sound clips to allow a little space here and there for you to get your head above the muck and sludge to catch enough of a breathe to dive back into the churning well of death metal.

Descending Through Ashes doesn’t see the band progressing too much nor will it be an album that will win many year-end awards, but it’s just too damned catchy for it’s own good, especially considering the glut of retro Swedish death metal out there now. Mr. Death know how to play this shit and they play it more than well enough to separate themselves from the posers and assbags out there trying to glom onto the resurgence of one of my favorite metal genres. When it all comes down to it, Mr. Death kick some serious ass with their latest full-length so quit fucking around and go buy it already.

That, however, is not a statement that can even remotely be applied to their latest release, Gallows. The production is tight, but not nearly as clean and refined as Sovereign. The aggression appears to be at hurricane-force levels once again, as well. Perhaps that’s due to the arrival of new drummer Andy York, who handles himself quite well in his first contribution to Landmine Marathon.

Gallows unleashes a steamroller of thrashing death metal ala early Bolt Thrower like there’s no tomorrow. Riffs are sharp and scathing as the rhythm section detonates large portions of earth at their own free will. Grace Perry continues to be a standout as far as female-fronted metal bands go. Her delivery is so honest and straightforward. It’s always refreshing to hear her let loose with some bowel churning growls and screams.

“Three Snake Leaves” gets right down to business as Perry growls away amongst the pummeling rhythms and galloping riffs. It’s a memorable track that is sure to echo in your brain long after the album has ended. It’s followed up by the quick hitting “Cutting Flesh and Bone,” a song that has plenty of groove and malevolence.

At just over five minutes in length “Knife From My Sleeve” is not only the longest track on the album, but it’s also one of the more punishing, Bolt Thrower influenced bit of death metal I’ve heard in a while. Starting off with a slow moving, monolithic build-up, the track slowly lurches its way to one of the more memorable and well written efforts the band has put on disc to date. The string of “Liver and Lungs,” “Dead Horses” and “Cloaked in Red” combine for nine minutes of bestial devastation in the form of unrelenting drum work, momentum shifting guitars and vocal destruction. “Cloaked in Red,” in particular, shouldn’t be missed as it rips through two and a half minutes of grinding death with little regard to you well being.

Gallows is a step up from the Landmine Marathon’s previous material. It may not be as blindingly fast as older stuff, but what it may lack for in speed, it more than makes up for in substance through more soundly structured songs, memorable music and an aggressive-as-fuck delivery. Perry and crew have delivered the goods with this latest offering.

Suffice it to say, the chunky slabs of doom-infused death metal of Reduced to Sludge is quite similar in style to that of Incantation with a decent helping of Bolt Thrower, Hail of Bullets and and a touch of Entombed thrown in for good measure. Delivered at a relatively slow moving pace (peppered with manic outbursts at just the right spots), the music is full, crushing and weighs heavy on your spine as it oozes from the speakers. It fills the air with an aura of despair and desolation. Vocally, Jill’s growls are on par, if not better, than any other lead female growler in the game today. At first (and even on third and fourth listens) I hadn’t realized that a chick was belting out those guttural utterances.

“Behind the Door” starts things off properly with a slowly building first couple of seconds before fulling engulfing you in Incantation inspired guitars that also carry a Bolt Thrower vibe to the thick, suffocating atmosphere. This lumbering song is dense as fuck as the vocal mayhem commences — an overall feeling that fills the entire album. The pace is picked up some with the second track, “Corroded” and injected with some earie guitar tones and several, nicely timed tempo shifts. The relatively shorter song length (most are under three and a half minutes) is ideal for music like this. It keeps the album from becoming too overbearing and allows you to invest just the right amount of time to each track.

For the most part the music on Reduced to Sludge is mired in its own sludgey goodness. That said the trio do know how to break out of the bogged down death metal (see the title track for a prime example) with some serious and ferocious blasts of frenzied guitar work and pile-driving drums. “Bedpan Commando,” “Leatherface” and “Death of a God” are all great examples of the band letting loose when it’s most needed. The gallop of “Death of a God” is like that of the four horsemen charging their way into your bedroom while you do your best to hide under the bed with soiled underwear.

I’d point out some other standout tracks, but that would just waste everyone’s time. The whole damn album is a fucking winner. Old school, doomy and crunchy, the death metal on Reduced to Sludge will, well, reduce you to sludge. I hope you’ve got your adult diapers on boys and girls when you toss this one in the CD player — shit’s about to get gnarly.

The title track gets us started with a light, almost hopeful bit of acoustic guitar before a few rancid screams announce the arrival of “Unleashed Wrath,” a crushing death metal track if ever there was one. Buzzsawing riffs, guttural growls and rapid fire drums erupt out of the speaker with a ferocity. Man, they’ve got the guitar tone down perfect — I can’t help but get a familiar feeling of nostalgia with these guys. The lead just before the two minute mark leads into some classic sounding riffs with a bit of a Slayer edge to them. The all-too-short “Crawling Death” starts off with big riffs and some piano before descending into a churning mass of zombiefied corpses and flying body parts. The groove/rhythm of this track is infectious as hell — as is the chorus.

The up-tempo chugging “Eaten by the Dead,” the very catchy and memorable “To Live is to Rot” and morbidly awesome gang vocals of “Undead” feel like the peak of the album, as the remaining songs don’t quite carry the same impact as the first half of the album. That’s not to say that they aren’t good, they are and certainly don’t take away from the overall appeal of this awesome album. It’s just that they don’t quite stand out after multiple listens. “The Slithering Below” is one of the more aggressively delivered tracks, “End of Existence” starts off with a slick bit of lead work and “Remains in Red” is utterly devastating.

Entrails is definitely one of those bands that deliver a sound that could fit right along some of the great releases of the early 90s. The Tomb Awaits has that authentic vibe that just feels right, but it also isn’t merely just mimicking the stuff we’ve all been listening to for the past 20 years. The music within the confines of this album is bludgeoning death metal in the Swedish death metal vein and it’s stuff that I could listen to over and over for a very long time. I’m already itching for more bruising goodness from these guys.

Die Miserable, the band’s ninth studio album, delivers eight solid songs packed full with manic drums, discordant guitars and vocal malevolence in just over a 35 minutes (the final track eats up 21 of them) time span. That alone right there should let you know that this isn’t your typical grind album — or grind band, for that matter. “Drift” gets things going after a short series of distant sound effect have given way to swirling, out of control merry-go-round guitars and barbaric drum work. Vocally, the band is where they have always been, delivering their message through a series of barks, growls and shouts that are so completely incomprehensible that it only makes the music backing it that much more ferocious. The short, stop-and-go rests amongst this beast of a song give it a spastic feel that I love.

A good helping of reverb and dissonance get “Cold Hearted” off to a relatively smooth start as Fuck the Facts build up to a swarming, churning mass of grinding blasts and pummeling rhythms. Much like the band’s own evolution each track on Die Miserable morphs multiple elements and influences into a cohesive and oddly fluid presence. “Lifeless” starts off with a memorable bit of riffing as group vocals announce their arrival before it jumps and dives all over the place with manic blasts and off-kilter guitar work. It’s the seven plus minute “Census Blank,” hover, that’s the highlight of the album. Fuck the Facts continue with the discordance, but at a dramatically slower pace. The opening guitars swell with a bit of a sludgy vibe. The song does eventually ramp up in tempo, but it’s not in the typical ferociousness that the band is known for — the measured and calculated increase shows a maturation from the group that we haven’t encountered before. It’s a hell of a song.

Another example of the band evolving and morphing is the calm and serene opening to “Alone.” The first minute and a half certainly doesn’t prepare you for the grinding assault that arrives shortly after. I never thought I would use the word atmosphere when reviewing a grind album, but man, there’s a heap of it in this song. The sub-two minute title track incorporates a decent bit of dissonance and melancholy into an album that is all over the place in terms of emotion. “A Cowards Existence” is chock full of noise, thundering drums and ADD guitar work. It’s as if the band decided to see just how messy and haphazard they could be with a song and still have it turn out fucking amazing — likewise with the closing track, “95.” Both songs have so much going on within them that it’ll take more than a few listens of the album to fully graphs what Fuck the Facts are doing.

I love progression in a band’s sound. The key to that progression however is to not simply abandon your core. Fuck the Facts are obviously quite aware of this fact. Die Miserable is an outstanding album containing some of their best work to date — and I am absolutely infatuated with their more primal grind material. The amount of diversity and atmosphere that the group injects into this album should be too much for it and cause all sorts of problems, but that’s not the case in the least. The music on this album may be all over the spectrum but it’s also cohesive and flowing — a testament to skilled musicians if ever there was one.

Rusty, buzzing chainsaw guitars fill the air immediately with album opener “A Feast For the Grave,” a relatively short intro that let’s you know exactly what you’re getting on this album. For the next 22 minutes or so, you’re auditory faculties will be dragged slowly through a bleak and barren landscape that’s been razed by thick, single-minded riffing, lurching tempos and thick, rumbling bass. Sure, Into the Grasp of the Starving Dead has an old school Swedish death metal backbone, but the rest of the burly frame that’s slowly rotting from that skeletal structure also packs in some doom for good measure.

“Gift of Rotten Flesh” stomps on the accelerator as best it can with churning riffs and quicker tempo, but the band dos well to stick with a few moments of slower moving, heaving death metal. Honestly, it’s what really sets this album apart from the recent rash of retro-Swedish death metal that’s been flooding my inbox lately. It’s a damn good song that shoves you head first into the more groove-fueled title track, complete with Entombed inspired riffing. I can tell you this, though, I do love the bass work on this album. The distant vocal presentation throughout the album only serve to accentuate the buried-six-feet-under feel of the album.

“A Nebulus Parting” and “Rotten Gates of Heaven” are enough together to raise the dead, unleashing their slow moving avalanche of brain-thirsting hunger upon the land. Each song crawls and lurches, but also inject enough up-tempo bursts to keep things interesting. The final two track on the album also carry the band’s crushing, atonal riffs through to the grisly end. Album closer, “Atonement from Hell” fades in with some decent drum work and a memorable series of riffs as the growling, decaying vocals arrive. It’s a hell of a song to end this short album on and one of my favorite tracks.

Into the Grasp of the Starving Dead isn’t just another stone to throw upon the heap of old school Swedish death metal pile. It certainly captures the keys to that style, but these Finnish hellions manage to have created something that stands out amongst the crowd. As short as it is, the album certainly gets your attention — much like a zombie gnawing your your exposed leg as you try to crawl from it’s clutching grasp.

Now, this latest slab of crawling, doomy death metal isn’t nearly as raw as that debut back in the day, but I’ll be damned if the band has changed all that much in the past 15 years. They’re still serving out the fetid, crawling doom-fueled death metal with nary a blastbeat to be found. Sure the tempos are amped up throughout the album, injecting some urgency into the music (see opener “Desecration Storm” for instance), but there a couple of choice tracks that chug along at the speed of decay. Vocally, the growls are a bit distant and not quite understandable which, of course, suits the music perfectly.

The primary riff that starts off “Forsaken Doom” reminds me of something I’ve heard in the past (Cannibal Corpse maybe), but I can’t quite pinpoint it. At any rate, the song churns along with even more distant growls and that thick, repetitive riff that is perfectly content on bludgeoning you slowly into oblivion. “Rising of the Beast” picks the rabid pace back up with a classic death metal vibe as the guys plunder through driving riffs and up-tempo drums. This song is certainly not my Cianide of old — it’s better. I love this track. Another ripper would be “Idolator” which gets right down to business with d-beat style rhythm as the classic death metal riffing comes in. It’s a head banger for sure.

As much as I enjoy the quicker paced material, it’s tracks like “Dead and Rotting” that really draws my attention, especially with it’s early Obituary influence. The slow moving, behemoth is definitely a favorite on Gods of Death. Another crawler to be on the look out for would be “The One True Death,” complete with some of the creepiest guitars on the album. Man, this song is a beast fully set on crushing any hopes you may have had of a happy and fruitful life — it’s a monolithic creeper.

I may have missed out on a few releases (I thought they had just flat out disappeared) between Cianide’s excellent debut and this latest slab of crushing death metal, but that doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy the hell out of Cods of Death. It’s a great example of why I loved these guys so much to begin with. It’s also great to hear a band not bend to any trends and stick to what they love and know — lurching death metal right from the mean streets of Chicago.

Let’s start off with that album opener, “Brewing the Storm.” If the whole album carried as much groove as this infectious intro, then I’d never listen to anything else. Sadly, however, we don’t hear anything as catchy until much later in the album. That’s not to say there isn’t any groove to be found in the tracks between, it’s just that they are mired thick in the buzzing riffs and an overall dense production. There’s a thunderous rhythm that permeates tracks like “Bring Me Darkness,” “Carved in Stone,” and “This Time is Divine” along with catchy melodies and raw, raspy vocals — every member of the band gets in on the shouting act throughout the album.

Amongst the swampy sludge are moments of levity that seem to lift the band out of the quagmire as evident on “Ender of All” and “Mass Devotion.” There’s just enough of these moments to keep the buzzing guitars from becoming stagnate or droning on. They also remind of the band’s contemporaries (Kylesa primarily) without aping the style that has also made those bands more well known and accessible.

It’s not until “Resistor” that the opening groove from the album opener slowly infects your skull and won’t let loose it’s addictive grip on your spinal cording, banging your head for you regardless of whether you really want to or not. It’s a kick as song which oddly enough is also without vocals. I don’t believe that’s a coincidence as I thoroughly enjoy the delivery these guys have — it suites their thick riffs and rumbling rhythms quite well.

Throughout Set the Dial we are reminded of the vibrancy from a scene that has spawned so many great acts. Black Tusk is another such band that, while holding true to their original sound, is ever so slowly branching out, expanding their repertoire at a rate that suits them just fine — and me, for that matter.