Ill Health

Sometimes I'm really glade to have picked up Daniel Ekeroth's book about swedish death metal, especially for the encyclopedia included in the end and the pieces of artwork scattered around the book.

This one really caught my eye, and I though "well, it has killer artwork, I need to check it", I know it sounds lame but when there are zillions of bands that's how you start picking individual ones.

Needless to say I wasn't disappointed: this is quality death metal. The songs are mostly fast-paced, carried by blast-beats or double bass work. The guitars have a thrash metal feeling most of the time, but they will occasionally go into tremolo picking melodies. Slower parts are relying heavily on double bass as said before, with huge power chords dropped in and somewhat disarticulate, almost technical sounding melodies. Yes, I think this band sounds quite technical, everything is rather tight here, the bass can even be heard rather well in some parts. The vocals remind me of another band but I can't pinpoint it, worth noting is that they are sometimes double-tracked with a raspy shriek over the low growl.

I'm not sure why they didn't make it bigger, these guys had a real potential and were doing something a bit different from the leaders of the scene. Another recommended listen for fans of the genre.