| CD REVIEW Dead Man’s Hand |
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Band : Dead Man’s Hand Hey man, here’s a funny story I found on this band’s MySpace page I didn’t want you to go without: “…after winning yet another pot at the poker table, Wild Bill Hickock had become very unpopular with the other players. Stakes were high and losses were considerable. After emptying his tenth shot of whiskey at the bar, Hickock sat down again, back to the room. As a new hand was dealt, a man approached Wild Bill from behind. Cocking his six-shooter and pointing it to the back of Wild Bill’s head, the man smiled as he would finally avenge the losses he had suffered. The bang from the gun was deafening. Wild Bill’s body fell to the floor, blood gushiing from his head. At the table lay the final hand of poker Wild Bill Hickock would ever see. Pair of eights, pair of acas, the last card facing doown; the infamous DEAD MAN’S HAND…” So, I don’t know from what movie or book this Norwegian band (which is based in Oslo and has been active since early 2005) took that story…or indeed whether they made it up themselves…but don’t expect the quintet to be playing a Country or Western flavoured music because of it! Nay, even if there’s the occasional lyrical influence, things are a little more powerful than that, and there’s a pérfect description on both the label’s website and the band’s MySpace. Rather than work my way through turning the words around and claiming them for my own, I’ll simply give you a combination quote: “…The best way to describe the band’s style of music would be to call it a blend of modern uptempo Thrash Metal and old-school down and mid-tempo Death Metal in the North American tradition. Fast 2/4 beats and heavy 6/8 go head to head with pounding mosh parts and melodic passages…the onslaught is topped off with a rendezvous between aggressive Thrash Metal vocals and guttural Death Metal gurgle growling…,” to which I feel like adding that the “aggressive Thrash Metal vocals” are also of a style frequently used by Black Metal bands! Also, the Death Metal vocals are cléarly done by someone else than the lead singer, as the two styles frequenly overlap each other! If the above description isn’t clear enough to you, or to make an acqaintance with how it actually sounds, just check out the three songs at myspace.com/dmhmetal (there’s also some live footage at YouTube…you go google for it!). The album was recorded last Summer at Oslo’s Lionheart Studios with recording engineer (and mixmaster for the occasion) Öyvind Larsen, and with a line-up comprising lead singer Dag Schaug Carlsen, guitarists Jon Schaug Carlsen and Martin Kandola, drummer Jostein Köhn, and bassist Kjetil Simondsen…whom has since left the band for family reasons. His replacement Stig Saetevik (of Summon The Crows and Rampant Dogs repute) made his live debut with the band during November. When listening to the album you start wondering where the guys get their prolific writing and playing skills from, whether perhaps they’ve honed their skills in previous bands. Great stuff, and definitively worthy of being nominated into the year-lists of many a Thrash or Death living Concrete Web reader…as it would in mine, if only I had more time to listen to the album a couple more times! The music is already catchy enough at first listen, and I wish by the Fates that I had more time to spend with The Cobination, only…that doesn’t combine too well with my to-do list of albums still awaiting my attention! Anyway, the rating is already accordingly high, okay? 98/100 Tony. |