Death Metal

Okay, let me put it this way - the album is fucking CALLED 'Death Metal.' Anyone with the sack to call their album 'Death Metal' needs to play some badass fucking music to back it up. And indeed, Dismember do - they rip, shred, and growl their way through forty minutes of making Gothenburg look like the pussiest place on earth, and Cannibal Corpse like hopelessly untalented amateurs.

There's no false advertising here. Grinding, roaring riffs back up high-speed, Maiden-possessed-by-Satan lead guitars, while some really good basswork plugs away under it all. Vocalist Matti Kärki spits out lines like "Comrade or enemy, I just don't care!" and "Living ghost behind a spirt-killing face/Stillborn ways of a mindfucking race" with enough power to make Anders Frieden crap himself. And the drums? The drums just RAWK.

The best songs on the album are "Silent Are the Watchers," one of several anti-religion tirades; its topical brother "Let the Napalm Rain"; and the dark Crusader horror-fantasy "Bred For War." The first is a high-speed vehicle for hellish lead guitar duets, the second an Apocalyptic anthem of crushing guitars and enraged singing ("The free will shall carry the day, drop the bomb and wash the filth away/LET THE NAPALM RAIN!"), and the third a vicious steamroller of a song with stomping double bass that rolls through several time changes with no thoughts of mercy.

Other highlights are the opener "Of Fire," a fast-paced paean to war with one of the catchiest lead guitar parts ever and a stomping middle section, and "Stillborn Ways," a slow and doomy juggernaut with riffs like the audio equivalent of two-ton anvils falling from the sky. The rest don't really stand out in any way, with the exception of "Trendkiller" (something of an exercise in speed for the sake of speed), but they're all good, solid death metal tracks that demand for the stereo to be cranked, the windows to be opened, and the throat to be flayed raw snarling along.

Plus, there's an impaled nun on the cover, and you CAN'T go wrong with that. Hell, it's why I bought the album when I was first getting into metal several years back..."Hey, it's a nun with a spear through her! I bet my mom will HATE that!" And is there really any better reason to buy an album? I think not. Check it out - real fucking metal. Real fucking death.