Death Breath marks the return of former Entombed drummer (well, not just drummer as he actually wrote most of their decent music) Nicke Andersson into the death metal scene from his days away from the scene he supposedly 'grew tired of' before moonlighting for several years in a poor mans 'rock and roll' group the Hellacopters. Also noticeable by their appearances on this album to back up their friend are J&ouuml;rgen Sandstr&ouuml;m & Scott Carlsson (ex-Entombed/Grave & ex-Repulsion respectively), who both are equally legendary in their own ways. Surely with this line up putting their heads together eager to create death metal mayhem, it's destined to be a bona fide classic? Hmmmm - not quite.
Death Breath is wholeheartedly tongue in cheek – a fact you could pick up from the band name alone without even looking at some of the ridiculous song titles ('Flabby Little Things from Beyond' anyone?), and I had a nasty vibe of Mr Andersson taking the piss out of the scene that made him slightly from this. However this was soon laid to rest as soon as I actually heard the music on offer, as it comes across as a mixture of 'To Ride, Shoot Straight and Speak the Truth' era Entombed and early Autopsy. There are some killer cuts on this CD (the excellent early Entombed sounding 'Morbid Mind', as well as the less dirty Repulsion-esque 'Chopping Spree'), but all in all, there's something intangible missing which I personally believe to be the fact that there's no real character to the album (with the overly jokey b-movie horror lyrical subject detracting further from its aura as an old school death metal album). OK, so they weren't trying to be serious in the first place, but at the end of the day for me the album comes across simply as a collection of moderate to good death metal riffs put together in nice 2-4 minute long 'song' forms, rather than a true ode to the old school that I was expecting it to be, re-capturing the classics and rejuvenating the old dark atmospheres. Bands like Abscess can still have piss-taking sick lyrics and pull off this vibe, so how come Death Breath can't quite pull it off?
So, this is a slightly mediocre shame as I was expecting a lot more from the people creating it. Here's hoping the next album (which is already in the pipe-line apparently) manages to get some real dirty atmospheres churning out of my speakers, rather than just a bunch of riffs which failed to really get my heart pumping.