Death Redemption

Following the up and coming bands in the black metal scene for many years, having grown up with Norwegian black metal back in the early 90's, finding new bands that evokes that true feeling of raw hatred, chaos and ancestral pride is a rare, but gratifying experience. Mauler, a young and relatively new black metal band from Friesland, NL, has managed to grab my attention with their latest demo: Death Redemption. With a minimalist, old school approach to the creation, playing and recording of this demo, the atmosphere created is truly hellish. This music is created out of inner chaos, and aggression, and an immense hate for modern human society. It is not always perfect, but that only adds to the allure, ensuring that the inner music of the band members are conveyed, and not clinically castrated by the music industry.

Death Redemption is Maulers second demo, and the first with the current line up of Sebas on bass/guitar, and Andry on vocal. When listening you ought to be aware that this is a young, unsigned band, but the four tracks featured are consistently good, and worth giving a try. Through the whole demo Andry's dark, aggressive vocal really amaze me, especially when knowing that this is a relatively young voice performing. The vocal sound is perfect for the dark, misanthropic chaos created by these young lads.

The title track “Death redemption” starts of with mid pacing, classic old school drums, that moves gently into madness as the track goes along. It is a drum machine, but the programming is well done, and very precise. Sebas guitar riffs also starts off quite classic, but turns into furious tremolo picking as the track goes along, eventually slowing down to end of where it all started. Somehow both the vocal and guitar riffs brings me back to Judas Iscariot's album Heaven In Flames, although I must admit to actually preferring Andrys voice to that of Andrew Harris. This is probably the most approachable of the tracks, with a strong melody, and powerful vocal working together, creating an easily recognizable sound, and massive head banging potential.

In "I am eternal"; the identity of Mauler truly shines. Like a great story, this track includes opposites; the almost cheerful guitar is being battled by the powerful vocal throughout the song. Just a shame with the ending, it cuts off to quickly, and does not add to the story. The combination of the quick melodic riffs and the fast drums makes the track very progressive, while the simple, raw vocal gives a good, clear message of human hatred for eternal time. Great tremolo picking as the track starts.

“Suicide sacrifice” is chaotic and unstructured! Andry's vocals are rasping fiercely along to Sebas powerful and melodic guitar riffs. I like how they evolve as the track goes a long. However, this is not their best track in my opinion, as it lacks the receipt that makes the rest of this demo so enchanting.

Hoarse, powerful and rasping vocal starts off the fast pace track, “Winnenden“! Savage! Andry's voice is true evil! Not sure about the riffs here though, some areas are great, but other places it sounds like they are not quite working with the vocal, rather speeding along on its own. Sebas is a great storyteller, using music to open the listener’s fantasy to stories of a chaotic, hard and dark world.

Through the whole demo, the guitar riffs create a structure, and identity within the chaos, and the minimalist approach to the creation of music is classic black metal. However I would like to hear more experimental, or maybe a stronger folk influence to distinguish the sound, and lift the band to another level. The band states their biggest inspiration to be Watain, Funeral Winds, Darkthrone and Bestial Summoning, and although I see influences from old Darkthrone, and maybe also some older Gorgoroth in their music, what I like is that they do not try to sound like any other band, rather they have created their own sound imagery, and should continue enforcing and building upon that for further releases.