Label: Independent
Date: April 6th, 2024
Well, I think it is the right time to visit my motherland once again and stay there for a while. But this time we’ll leave alone my city where I grew up, also in music meaning of course, and move to the south. Unofficial capital of Polish metal, especially these extreme kinds of, is and always was Silesia. Well, to avoid hearing from some people, including even my several buddies, “Sosnowiec isn’t Silesia at all”, I say it loudly: I don’t give a shit about this artificial division, which’s legacy of Poland’s partitions! I know most folks outside my fatherland have no idea what I’m talking about, but you can always check it out to get to know this – it’s as easy as pie to do that, so don’t count on some history lesson on my side. However, the number of metalheads over there, also of these active ones who wanted to do something more than only to listen to our beloved genre of music (you know, create their own band, edit fanzine…), since I remember, and considering my internship…, was huge. Of course, I have no time and even will to write here why that’s like that, what I decided about it and so on. I even like sociology and stuff, but Abaddon Magazine is about something else. So, instead I’ll focus on a few publications that have seen the light of day this year. My first choice is a found 1989 ensemble who once was quite promising in the Polish underground but disappeared for eleven years shortly after releasing the only demo “Sadist’s Vision”. Fortunately, the guys decided to come back from the ashes 2016 and since then they have been operating quite dynamically – in the space of these eight years they released EP, demo and two albums.
“Programmed Obedience” is the second full-length in history and contains eight compositions. The whole album takes almost thirty-six (without fifteen seconds) minutes. But music isn’t what probably most of you just think about. I mean, this is of course pure death metal based in abyss of tradition and there’s no doubt about it even a second, but at the same time that’s not something very fast and stuff. As I wrote once (well, I think even few times in space of time I’m in Abaddon and even more since I stated torture other people with my scribble) brutality hasn’t only one face, there’s not some universal recipe for that. Guys play mostly in middle tempos. You’ll find here everything that you’re looking for in classic death metal. I mean, brutal, broken, but at the same melodic, in sick way, riffs, several guitar tricks drilling in your head – it doesn’t take place too often and are only some kind of curiosities, massive and developed enough drumming (with a lot of cymbals) or deep growling. And what kind of death metal is it? Well, I hear in this creativity quite a lot of influences from the East Coast of the USA but also of a Dutch ensemble whose debut demo was entitled “Perpetual Damnation” for example. But our friends create their own thing and it’s easy, at least for me, to hear characteristic touches of Polish wildness rooted in times when the extreme metal scene in my homeland was still crawling and it doesn’t matter there’s only one original member in the band.
I know I probably should write even more about what you’ll be able to listen to on “Programmed…”, but I think, however, it’ll be much better if you move your asses yourselves and find this released independently April 6th on CD stuff. The modern times of universal digitization mean that you don’t have to risk your money, and you can listen to it before you decide to send the cash to Deadly Vision. And I’m sure if you call yourself a fan of death metal, you’ll surely use the band’s e-mail address and show your support to the band spending some euros on the CD. This way you’ll even help them to release their next work the same old-school way. So, I’m ending this review right now to not give you an excuse like “Before I do what he says, I need to read everything and there’s so many lines to the end, so…”!
