Band : Illdisposed
Album title : Burn Me Wicked + 1-800 Vindication
Label : Massacre Records
Distributor : Massacre Records - Suburban
Release date : 28/08/2009
Release : CD (re-issues with bonus tracks)

Hum…We (speaking in the majestic form, hence “We”, instead of “we”) have a somewhat weird relationship with this Aarhus based, Danish Death Metal act! In 2006 the band released their 2nd album on Roadrunner, label with which our editor-in-chief has some very tight ties…and for some reason or other, the latter decided to hand Burn Me Wicked over to Us (majestic form, remember!) for review (posted 19/09/2006, with a nomination for inclusion in my year-lists of 2006), rather than to have it done by our in-house Death Metal specialist Ivan.

For some reason Illdisposed got dropped by Roadrunner, and 2008’s follow-up album The Prestige was issued through AFM Records. We didn’t even gét that albumfor review (both label and distributor were at that time reviewing the people they wanted to work with), and when the band just now issued their latest offering through Massacre (released on the same date as these re-issues, by the way!), our editor-in-chief decided to have that one reviewed by one of my newer collegues (it was posted 23/08, by the way). Since Burn Me Wicked, a new line-up change with the replacement of 2nd guitarist Martin Thim (whom had just joined in August of 2005) by Franz “Hellboss” Gottschalk during 2007.

At any rate, I don’t think his joining changed a lot to the band’s signature sound, which has always allowed for a lot of groove and the occassional keyboard! For those who will just now be getting in contact with this Danish institute in the Death Metal genre, the re-issues will be a welcome thing, as both albums carry bonus tracks! In the case of 2004’s 1-800 Vindication (which I hadn’t heard before), you get the live versions of “Near The Gates” and “Ich werde verloren in Berlin” (no idea whence they came, or which albums they originally occurred on, whether they were possibly used as bonus tracks for the releases of the albums in Japan or the US, or whatever!). Burn Me Wicked comes with bonus live tracks “Dark” and “Weak Is Your God” (again, no idea whence…bla, bla, bla).

Okay, no need for me to tell you Death Metal fans out there what this band means in the scene, but people newer to the scene (due to youth or sudden interest, whatever) may find some (a staggering amount of 10!!!) mp3-files of songs of a variety of albums at myspace.com/illdisposed (two each off these re-issues, too!). It would be unfair to ask of me to re-rate these albums (what with me already familiar to at least the Burn Me Wicked material, there’s at least sóme recognition factor in play here), but I will say this: I don’t care much for the somewhat gratuitous bonus live tracks (I’d have preferred some bonus studio material in stead…but then perhaps there wans’t any available, eh?)

Tony.