| CD REVIEW Landmine Marathon |
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Band: Landmine Marathon This album is my first ‘meeting’ with Phoenix, Arizona based quintet Landmine Marathon, but the band did release two full lengths before, Wounded (2006) and Rusted Eyes Awake (which was re-released last year through Prosthetic), both originally released by Level Plane, and a split with Scarecrow (2007, through the very same label). The band, consisting of female ‘singer’ / lyricist Grace Perry, guitar players Dylan Thomas and Ryan Butler, bassist Matt Martinez and drummer Mike Pohlmeier, entered Ryan’s Arcane Digital Recording Studio (production, engineering and mix), known for sonic registrations for bands as Phobia, The Funeral Pyre and Misery Index, the mastering was done at Alan Douches’ West West Side Music (think Dillinger Escape Plan, Aborted, High On Fire, Converge, Cannibal Corpse amongst many others), and the explicit artwork was created by highly acclaimed artist Dan Seagrave (Suffocation, Entombed, Morbid Angel, Dismember etc). Sovereign Descent brings forty minutes of extreme Grindcore/ Death Metal with a tempo that varies from pretty slow, over mid-tempo, to rather fast, including an extreme and unstoppable rhythm section, and with somewhat high-pitched screams. The latter may bother some, and I can imagine that it starts getting painful after a while, spawning ear- and headache… But as a matter of fact, it is the only thing that enervates me, those vocals. Instrumentally, the whole sounds as a tribute to both the American and English (old school) scene (as well as the Swedish [think Dismember, Entombed etc] and Polish [Toxic Bonkers, Decapitated, …] one, from time to time, by the way). And because the overall tempo often (most of the time) is slow and pounding, the whole does not enervate at all, which can be a ‘problem’ when playing blast-stuff only. Several riffs do bring a band as Bolt Thrower to mind, then again (early) Carcass and Napalm Death might have been of influence, yet I must also think about, for example, Obituary, Kylesa, Six Feet Under etc. Sovereign Descent is a brutal fist-in-the-face, yet a honest one! 75/100 Ivan Tibos. |
