Landmine Marathon, Sovereign Descent
It’s one thing to pull influences from the likes of legendary bands Napalm Death, Carcass and Bolt Thrower. It’s another to infiltrate that blend of elements your band’s own hardcore roots. Landmine Marathon‘s latest album does just that. Through small evolutionary steps and a cleaner production Sovereign Descent isn’t anything revolutionary from this band — it’s exactly what you would expect and want to hear from this Phoenix based group. It’s an album full of thundering, grinding death metal with just enough punk crust to give the music held within its nine songs a feeling of spit-in-your-face disgust.
While Landmine Marathon‘s influences have altered their own brand of death/grind, this quartet seems quite content on perfecting a sound they all fell in love with. There’s something honest amongst the ferocious barks, screams and bludgeoning rhythms that keeps the band’s sound refreshing and free of stylistic stagnation. Perhaps it’s their delivery — wild and unconstrained. Then again, perhaps I’m just mentally stuck in the heyday of death metal and grind (damn you Dan Seagrave and your awesome album art).
Exist
“Exist” fades in slowly until you are surrounded by galloping drums, thundering bass and driving riffs that can’t help but remind you of Bolt Thrower. That feeling, however, only lasts a minute or so before the grind core influences and Grace Perry’s ferocious screams and barks come in with a vengeance. I hope you’re ready to take an ass whoopin’ because that’s exactly what you’re going to get with this song. The warbling lead at 3:20 is pretty sick.
Shadows Fed to Tyrants
The band wastes no time getting down to some nasty business with this blasting, grinding song. “Shadows Fed to Tyrants” is as violent a song as you can find. It’s unrelenting, yet has enough of a groove and flow to give you plenty of opportunities for some serious head banging. If there’s anything I’ve learned from listening to this album a few times now is that it needs to be played loud — real loud.
Foul Revolt
Never leaning to heavily on grindcore or death metal as stand alone influences, Landmine Marathon have crafted a well structured balance between the two genres. “Foul Revolt” is solid proof of that, starting off with a chugging Bolt Thrower vibe and lead before exploding with a frenetic burst of caustic, aural destruction just after about a minute or so into the song. It’s this balance that allows the album to swell dramatically is all the right places.
Cruel Policy
I love the opening riffs to “Cruel Policy.” They’re massively heavy, dark and lead into some spastic tempo blasts and vicious vocals. The groove that weaves in and out of this track is pretty damned catchy, especially with the more traditional death metal feel of the song. This is a killer song right here.
Justify the Suffering
“Justify the Suffering” starts out a bit on the chaotic side, but eventually settles into a pummeling rhythm with thick bass, driving riffs and Perry’s vocals (which have been outstanding thus far). This is one of those songs that you can get a little too wrapped up in, leaving you bruised after flying around your bedroom like a maniac for a good few minutes. Sick fucking song.
Steadfast Hate
Coming in at over seven minutes in length, this next one has a coat of swampy sludge smeared on thick to the burly guitars. It’s a dark and foreboding song that shows that the band know how to play around at a lower RPM rate just as effectively as if they were tying to peel back a few layers of your flesh with their blistering grind attacks.
Chained by the Same Fate
After the monstrous “Steadfast Hate,” the band get into this next track with a bit more of Napalm Death inspired grind attack. It’s thick in tone and relentless in its delivery. Everyone in the group is going to town on their respective instruments — Perry included as she has got to be doing some long term damage to her throat with some of these shrieks. The lead around 2:40 is pretty damned sick and shouldn’t be missed.
Flood the Earth
The opening to “Flood the Earth” has a classic vibe to it for the first 40 or so seconds before the band settles snugly into a bruising rhythm of thick riffage and barbaric drums. This is another of those songs that has a more traditional death metal vibe akin to early 90’s Bolt Thrower — thick and heavy.
Rise with the Tide
“Rise with the Tide” closes out the album with a slightly more open and brighter tone to the guitars. They sound vaguely familiar, but I can’t place my finger on it. After the lighter, more stoner-esque opening riffs, the band gets into some meaty, grinding rhythms. This uptempo track is definitely what the band needed to wrap up a pretty damned good album.
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Additional Notes:
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