Welcome to the Battlefield

Almost every damn fucking year, I experience a grey depressive episode where I mourn our collective worthless life of work and pain with my nihilistic douchebagery until I snap out of it and get my shit back together with some cheap self help tapes and a good cry behind a dumpster as a horny gutter rat is humping my trembling leg. Go away, you fucking animal! I ain't dead yet!

"Welcome to the Battlefield" found me in one of those really bleak and stinking episodes of absolute nothingness and will forever be a nice memory about getting back some of that sweet sweet hedonism and righteous fury via silly blasting fun and catchy riffing from a band that is definitely not aiming for any kind of real artistic height or eloquent fulfillment but was just kinda pissed in the studio and did let it all out in a very charming way.

Do you remember that scene in "Rambo II" where Rambo got captured by the Russians and is threatening a commander that left him behind over a microphone? He flexes his muscles and prepares to fight his way out as the guy that is stationed many many miles away is almost shitting his pants because he is now on the top of the shit list of an expert in guerilla warfare that can eat things that would make a billy goat puke? If there ever was an album to illustrate the vengeful passion of that scene, it's this one. By the way, have you ever seen a military helicopter on the cover of a metal record? This was definitely my first and only time and I think that it fits the music perfectly. Let's get those machine guns rollin', boys! Tatatatatatata! Aggression is one cheap whorish object of low value in extreme metal and you can get a bit numb when too much of that stuff has been flowing through your veins. "Welcome to the Battlefield" manages to keep that good old asskicking of vicious feelings fresh because it knows exactly what it is and what it isn't supposed to do with its rather short runtime.

I really tried to appreciate the debut of In Battle for its unrelenting speed and brutality, but the icy tremolo guitar melodies were just too damn mediocre and boring in the end. Setherial or Immortal did it so much sexier and cleverer. Not every band is meant to sweep across the land with a terrifying tempo of a legendary blizzard and look elegant enough while doing it. If somebody would have told me back then that In Battle would try their luck with some technical death metal a bit later, I would have rolled my eyes and erased this band from my personal history like a bad stain of derivative artistic waste. But after actually listening to an awesome album that was supposed to be another painful letdown of a second rate blasting act, I can assure you that there are no eyes being rolled here tonight. Oh no, sir! Catharsis is so much fun and your mother sucks cocks in hell!

This is in fact another project. Almost every aspect of the band has been changed like tired and beaten horses from a carriage and the end result resembles a rather dumbed down and simplified party version of Psycroptic. The Swedish norsecore drumming got waaaaay more technical and very varied with its shorter and often interrupted blasts (still fast as fuck, of course), stalwart thrash beats, angry mid tempo grooves and rattle snake infested double bass backround fodder with thick and bass heavy ends. Good lord, this double bass is fast. Did George Kolias play this shit while I wasn't looking? My penis is now very hard. The now cleaner and almost sterile sound of the drums does actually work quite well in the context of childish cartoon military celebration, it's like the hand of discipline itself got its hands on the percussionist. How weird, how fitting. The guitars (also produced thicker, heavier and more professionally of course) meander between modern thrash and vital, not really nostalgic death metal with their handsome pummeling of palm muted light speed chugging and semi melodic tremolo riffing of equal hurry. Some extremely catchy guitar leads (!) and solos from the eighties and a jumpy bass guitar humming support the aim of aggressive catchiness which is actually achieved with ease. God damn! This album was supposed to be shitty, how dare you?

The laid back and throaty hardcore gnarling of the vocalist with the occasional high screams of gut ripping ass slaps is another aspect that makes this album so fucking sweet. This record is not supposed to be intertwined with subtle genius or educated pretention but it's smart enough to escape the traps of mediocrity with enough catchiness and a cool revenge attitude. It's not stupid, just simple. This album always puts me in a good mood, it makes me want to watch Rambo II and III again where Sly mercilessly fires countless bullets, knifes, explosive devices and arrows into a faceless army of red shirts. How about a can of cheap beer, a kebap sandwich that is smothered in onions and some good old lesbian porn afterwards? Ah, it's good to be alive, isn't it?

For those who already know In Battle, you pretty much know what to expect. Blastbeats, double bass, and endless speed. Expect machine gun/assault rifle sounding drums and heavily palm muted guitars, and expect no end in the assault.

For the most part, In Battle don't stray from that credo. They do, however, switch over to a more death metallish sounds (while past releases were deathy black metal, this is more blackened death metal.) As well, with the exception of John Frolin, who played guitar when this was made, this is a completely new band. While they had a full band on the s/t debut, that lineup got thinned to just Otto Wiklund (Drums, vocals) and Frolin (guitar, bass) and after Rage of the Northmen he left the band. Frolin reformed the band and they did the Soul Metamorphasis demo. From that came Welcome to the Battlefield. Though there was a new drummer, the sound is still recognizably "Wiklund metal", as the drumming is in the same vein as the Wiklund's style.

The guitars took a step up after "Rage" and here they are all over the place, much like the drums. Of course the bass is buried in the mix, but the same could be said of Rage of the Northmen and In Battle. The vocals and lyrics are annoying, as well, since he mainly sticks in the midrange and doesn't go anywhere else. However, again, that didn't stop Rage of the Northmen and In Battle from sucking, and it doesn't detract too much from the music. One quarrel I do have is that unlike on past releases, the vocals are more coherent and understandable. Normally that is good, but In Battle are terrible at writing lyrics. Oh well.

This isn't really intelligent music, and it wasn't meant to be. It was meant to be a neck snapping, bone crushing slab of blastbeats, double bass, guitar sweeps, and hate. It isn't In Battle's best (That award goes to Rage of the Northmen) but it sure as hell is fun to listen to. I must say I liked the band better when Wiklund was still in it, but that really boils down to personaly preference. If you happened upon their death metal years first instead of their black metal years, you'll like this era more. Nonetheless, they both do the same thing, really, which is blast away at supersonic speeds.

A lot of metal bands have upped the ante this year. The latest from Mastodon, Clutch and Omnium Gatherum immediately come to mind. And whilst they’re quite not in the same league, Sweden’s In Battle have put together a new full length that makes their previous efforts look quite amateurish. As far as I could tell, ‘Welcome to the Battlefield’ is a massive step up for this band.

According to a bit of press I witnessed on this release, except for John Frolen (brr), In Battle is a completely new band. Since 1998’s ‘The Rage of the Northmen’, joining Frolen is vocalist John "Odhinn" Sandin, ex-Diabolical guitarist Hans Carlsson and drummer Aeon (a.k.a. Nils Fjellstrom). This was the line up recorded the mini CD "Soul Metamorphosis" and subsequently gained a label deal with Cold Records, Metal Blade’s sub-label.

With a title like ‘Welcome to the Battlefield’, it doesn’t take a genius to realize that this is going to be an exercise in brutality. Checking the involvement of one Erik Rutan (Hate Eternal) as the producer and mixer on this disc only confirms that this will be severe. With the aid of Shawn Ohtani at Mana studios in Tampa Florida, the sound achieved on WTTBF is ultra precise and crystal clear giving rise to a delightfully vicious tone not dissimilar to the likes of Vital Remains and Hate Eternal themselves. Clearly, In Battle are a much more modern sounding thrashy/death metal act than the fast paced primitive black metal band they were half a decade ago.

Aside from the overall sound change In Battle have established on this new disc, two distinct elements stand out for me. Firstly, the drumming is devastating. Like a Kevin Tally (ex-Dying Fetus) or Matt Byers (Misery Index) Nils Fjellstrom is the human octopus, displaying an incredible love for insanely fast blasting, complex fills and a relentless double kick. The other stand out feature of In Battle is Sandin’s vocals. Now, his style is nothing original, nor could even be considered varied or far-reaching range wise. However, what he does do is encourage a somewhat Modern American Metal sound for his band. So much so that I thought Lamb of God’s Randy Blythe was doing guest vocals for this band. The similarity is uncanny. If this impresses you, then view In Battle as Lamb of God on speed.

WTTBF is one of the more surprising albums of the year. For a band that was so middle tier and decidedly bog standard on previous efforts, this album is a major improvement and has me considering their position in the metal community in a completely different light. For fans of fast paced but technically proficient blasting style death metal with that Lamb of God American Metal feel (which I’m sure is unintentional), then this is worth your time.

I've heard some negative things about this band, and have often seen them referred to as noresecore. So I decided to check them out, simply out of curiosity. On this CD, In Battle do not play black metal, nor do they try to. The music is essentially fast extreme metal. It isn't exactly death metal, but it also isn't black metal. Perhaps blackened death may be somewhat of an accurate discription, since the riffing style is somewhat death metal influenced, while the atmosphere and general feel of the music is black metallish. Most of the riffs are actually quite thrashy, with lots of fast palm muted picking, though they are played far faster than thrash. There are occasional black metal tremolo riffs thrown in here and there, but they are not a dominant characteristic of the sound of this album. The drums are fast and very tight, and blast beats are abundant on this album. However, the blast beats never drown out the riffs, which is a characteristic that is integral to a good extreme metal CD in my opinion. The production is very good, and fitting of the music. The guitar sound is crisp and sharp, and you can clearly hear everything that the guitars play. The vocals are somewhere between black metal and death metal vocals. They are not the high pitched screech that is common for black metal vocals, but they are also not low pitched gutteral death grunts. They lie somewhere in between, and sound harsh and aggressive, complimenting the aggressive nature of the riffage and drumming. I will not review individual songs on this CD, because they are all in the same vein. They are all fast for the most part, with occasional slower melodic passages, which contrast with the high speed aural assault that characterizes the band's general sound. This CD has the potential to appeal to black metal fans, death metal fans, and thrash fans. But don't expect the CD to exactly fit any of those genres.