The lexicon of death metal appears to an outsider to consist of words gathered from medical textbooks and horror movies although the two most used keywords by insiders are crushing and brutal. Listening to Finnish death metal band SOTAJUMALA's latest offering you can rest assured, these two keywords once again will be bandied about.

I stuck this CD in the player after listening to the atrocious BALLS CD and immediately heard good musicianship. These guys are tighter than Scrooge McDuck. The vocals are death grunts and whether or not the lyrics can be clearly heard is irrelevant for a lot of us since they are all in Finnish.

What really stands out on this album is the drumming because drummer Timo Häkkinen is capable of making tempo changes seem effortless and never boring. He often moves from a blastbeat to slowing right down and blending in with the other musicians seamlessly. The guitar players are no slouches either, and there are more than enough tasteful, satisfying leads all over the place that fit with the band's music, often shifting from slow mode to fast and back again. The emphasis here is on power rather than just speed.

The final track "Teloitus" clocking in at seven minutes drags a little, but other than that "Teloitus" is a very fine death metal album or in death metal dialect, this is a brutal crushing album.

- Carr

OFFICIAL SITE: www.sotajumala.com

RELATED ITEMS: No related articles at this time.