Deathless Steel Command

Well I sure have been stalling on this one for a while. "Deathless Steel Command" has been on regular rotation (and sometimes the only album I'd listen to in a day) for several weeks now. Now this is not the next big masterpiece or anything, it is just a damn good album. As far as extreme metal goes, "Blackened Death" is among my favourite genres - you often get the proficiency of good Death Metal but without the growling vocals (I'm more into Black Metal-style screeches.) This is what Spearhead offer us here. Death Metal with BM-style atmosphere and vocals, with little to complain about. This is rather old school in style, think early 90s Swedish Death Metal (i.e. real DM, the pre-Gothenburg period) and marries musical ability with a certain lo-fi feel but not overdone (or should that be "not underdone?")

This is some rather fast-paced material, with the exception of the intro (which reminds one of a war field) and the outro, which does feel like an actual outro, gradually telling you that the album is coming to an end. The only thing that gets on my nerves here is that the drums sometimes sound like the drummer is hitting on cans, and that's too bad considering the drumming is quite attention-catching throughout the album, sometimes stealing the show from the guitar work which is also quite captivating, with some solos borrowing more from traditional metal than any other genre. An addictive album, to say the least.