| CD REVIEW One Man Army And The Undead Quartet |
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Band: One Man Army And The Undead Quartet The Swedish band One Man Army And The Undead Quartet in fact started as a Thrash / Deathrash-oriented solo-project by Johan Lindstrand (also ex-Incapacity, ex-Impious), after his former band The Crown was put to rest. Soon he joined forces with Impious-colleague Valle Adzic and Mikael Lagerblad, who both did some session work for Johan. After Marek Dobrowolski and Pekka Kiviaho were recruited, the band started recording their debut album, 21st Century Killing Machine. Following some line-up changes, huge tours with bands as Gorefest, Soilwork, Hypocrisy or Children Of Bodom, and the release of the second album, the highly acclaimed Error In Evolution, the band didn’t stop working and continued writing new material. To ensure a perfect production, the band worked with Jonas Kjellgren at his Black Lounge Studio (Facebreaker, Centinex, Flagellation, Demonical etc.) this time, and just after the finalisation of the album, the band also switched over from Nuclear Blast to Massacre Records. That’s nothing but good news for Massacre, because OMAATUQ did record their strongest album to date. Grim Tales is less catchy, less groovy and less thrashing than the former album(s), and the result is a pretty refreshing Death Metal album with an own face. The powerful songs, having a total running time of forty seven minutes, are melodic and rhythmic, and what’s more, they are more varying than before. The tracks change from fast over up-tempo to, a few times, mid-tempo, and these tempo-changes come with a perfect symbiosis of every instrumental or vocal element. The bulldozer-riffs, the thrashy riffs and sharp solos, and the fire-spitting grunts come with a raw yet splendid sound quality. I do certainly not miss the somewhat naïve catchiness of the former albums, and I hail this new step in their history. The former album might have been ‘error in evolution’; Grim Tales is a next level in this band’s evolution! 85/100 Ivan Tibos. |