Band : Benediction
Title : Killing Music
Label : Nuclear Blast
Distribution : PIAS
Release date : September 2008
Review : CD + Bonus DVD.

The UK-band Benediction will celebrate its twentieth anniversary next year, which makes them one of the oldest bands in the English Death Metal scene. Throughout the years, this formation gained a huge fan base, and at the same time this band has been praised and, eh, unpraised. Never mind what your personal opinion might be; it cannot be ignored that this band has influenced so many other bands. Did you, by the way, know that Barney Greenway and Paul Adams were members in the early years? Now you do. Killing Music, the newest piece, was recorded at Rohannas Recording and mixed at Necrodeath Studio by Mick Kenney, aka Irrumator from, for example, Mistress, Anaal Nathrakh (both bands in which Benediction-vocalist Dave Hunt is active too), Professor Fate or Exploder. He also created the intro for the album. For 54:39 minutes, including four bonus songs (among which a Broken Bones and an Amebix-cover – two examples of their Punk-passion – both with guest vocalists and musicians, among which Brujeria / Faith No More’s Billy Gould, Karl Willetts (Bolt Thrower), Jock (GBH), Frost’s Steve Kenney, or Kelly Shaefer from Atheist and Neurotica fame), you can expect the ‘usual’ stuff, which means: firm and rhythmic Death Metal with a punkish attitude and an old school approach. As before, Benediction do not need any modernism nor technical experiments to express their will to crush ear membranes and skulls. I can imagine some might find it too ‘dated’, but old school fans cannot but appreciate this new album. It’s not the band’s best material, nor is it the worst thing they ever did; Killing Music is just decent Benediction stuff with balls and brains.
The album comes with a bonus-DVD, which will absolutely be appreciated by all fans. The DVD brings two things: live material and a studio report, all mixed to make it interesting whole the time. The live pieces are pretty rough and unpolished, yet with an acceptable sound and view, so don’t expect a well-produced live registration for a huge audience. It is meant to be exceptional bonus material – nothing more (and certainly nothing less!). The (older) live songs are interspersed with fragments from the recording session for Killing Music. This comes with the necessary humoristic commentary. Besides the members, also other people, who were involved with this album, are part of this documentation: Nuclear Blast-owner Markus Staiger, producer / mixer / master Mick Kenney, guest vocalists Karl and Jock and so on. The comments are very amusing and full of useless additional information – did you, for example, know that vocalist Dave has an extremely high IQ. He’s member of MENSA and categorised as ‘genius’. Also the (ab)use of drugs and alcohol, and the recording process (+ its circumstances) are refreshing, comic and pretty interesting.
Or to conclude: yes!

86/100

Ivan Tibos.