HISTORY
Let's see here, this is an american death/black-metal band that I discovered a while back ago. This band is called
Angel Corpse and they were formed at 1995 and was active during the 90's and forward, though they didn't made any bigger success in the short career(if you can call it that). People who have heard the well-known death-metal band called
Morbid Angel can imagine how this band would sound like. For those who haven't heard about
Angel Corpse or
Morbid Angel will be given a short description about here (not including
Morbid Angel though).The album by the way is called
''Exterminate'' and the material is high-paced death-metal with ingredients from the black-metal genre, the vocals are based on growls with a raspy sound (think
Satyricon) and the guitars are fast, quite technical and pretty brutal.
THE CREW
This album was performed by a group of four, the vocalist and bassist in this band was named
Pete Helmkamp, the two guitarists was named
Gene Palubicki and
Bill Taylor, the last member is the drummer and his name is
John Longstreth. So what can I say about their performances in this album then,
Pete's part in the band is of course important becuase his is the vocalist. His vocals are more directed to black-metal than death-metal, the vocals are dark growling, but it sounds like he is belching at the same time when he is singing. And as a bassist I can only say one thing, rhythm. You can't hear anything from the bass because it is overshadowed by the drumming and the thick guitar work. The guitar work which is performed by
Gene and
Bill is a pretty good piece work, the guitars is classic death-metal with very fast riffing, chaotic soloing and played with presicion. [John's[/i] performance is the best in my opinion, people who know the drum-monster
Gene Hoglan from the thrash-metal band
Dark Angel can imagine how this will sound like. Lightning fast rapid firing drum patterns and very heavy beats played with high accuracy.
THIINGS I LIKED ABOUT THIS ALBUM
I am now a fan of the extreme thrash-metal band
Dark Angel so I enjoyed this also a bit actually, most becuase of the amazing drum work and the high pace in the songs. I can't understand how skilled these drummers really are, the drum work is like an ever-flowing, rampaging avalanche. Maybe not as heavy but the speed from this drummer is probably the best trick the band got under their arm-sleeves, but these types of drum patterns are not for the weak though. Another thing I liked about this band was the speed in all the songs, the flow was good because some bands has these things to go down in pace a few times or more in their songs. Songs that changes their paces to often usually bores me but this band didn't, though this is not my style of music but I admire the musicians skills very much.
THINGS I DISLIKED ABOUT THIS ALBUM
It was more things that bugged me rather than enjoyed me to be honest, some things I didn't like was the vocals for example. I'm used to hear death-vocalists sing with deep growls or harsh 'n' raspy screaming, and black-metal singers with their harsher and more evil vocals but this was something right between though. I think that these vocals sounded a bit odd for a death-metal band, this band was considered to one of america's better death-metal bands but not to me. The vocals sounded more like belching mixed with black-metal influenced singing, and that made a wierd sound to me ears. The material was very repetitve too, all the songs sounded pretty much the same becuase of the drumming to mention one thing. The guitars were also a factor that affected the songs, the riffage seemed to go up and down and they were fast all the time. The songs never had a chance to ''rest'' and get a newer pattern with other riffs and/or drum work, this lack of variation made the whole album quite uninteresting.
FINAL JUDGEMENT
Jesus what an album, both good stuff but also some bad stuff. As I said before, the drums and the speed was the elements in this album that grabbed my attention very good. But, the major things that I didn't like about this album was the poor variation, the ''belching'' vocals and the basically the album as a whole. I think that only hardcore death-metal people would like this, if you like the band
Dark Angel and bands like
Death and
Morbid Angel you might check these guys out. I have no idea how many humans who knows about this band but I still think that they could create some new fans through this website but who knows. Not a band for me but ''extreme'' people would enjoy thispretty much, it did show classic elements from both death and black-metal but mostly from death-metal I would say.
PROS
+ Incredible drum work, ferosious speed and precision
+ The guitars were quite thick and made a sturdy wall of sound
CONS
- All the songs was very repetitive
- The vocals didn't suit the music
- The drums lacked of variety
- No we can't hear the bass at all
RECOMMENDED TRACKS
-- Christhammer
-- Into The Storm Of Steel
The overall album rating will be a:
2.5/5
