releasing September 7th: Siege Of Power (review by MMB)

Siege of Power

Warning Blast

Metal Blade Records

7 September 2018

Siege of Power unites a bunch of death metal elders from Holland with Asphyx, Houwitser, Hail of Bullets, Thanatos and other cult names on the collective curriculum vitae of Theo van Eekelen, Bob Bagchus, Paul Baayens, and on the vocals they got the honorable lord of U.S. depravity Chris Reifert from Autopsy to scream, rant, rave, shout and growl.

One beautiful sunny green Tuesday afternoon in Amsterdam these fine gentlemen were sipping tea and enjoying their vegan chocolate cake at the Chocolaterie Pompadour and they somehow came upon the topic of death metal, as one tends to do in such occasions, and they were circling around the matter of fun and rules and somehow, after a few bites of vegan cake, one of the gentlemen just blurted out, right out of the blue, “Death metal does not sound like fun anymore, and Utrecht metal must save it!” They did something about it, and voilà, this is Siege of Power.

There are 20 songs of angry punk-inspired death metal. Think olden death metal dressed in gutter punk rock attitude with obscene and obnoxious lyrics and you get the picture (This is not grindcore, by the way. I know what you’re thinking about the name.). The songs are short and get down to business quickly. The drumming is old-punk drumming concerned with the beat and the guitars are chugging loudness and the vocals for some reason seem angrier than ever before. So much for mellowing out with age, Mr. Reifert. One surprising fact about the album is the amount of melody. Yes, it’s nasty old punk death metal anger and whatnot, but the guitars solos more frequently than expected veer into a nice quick shot of melody. Hieperdepiep hoera!

It looks like these senior musicians decided to have more fun with their music than their past projects. They made the music simpler, looser and more rocking. Expect some uptempo grooving, and some melody, and a bit of slower rocking, too, and lots of angry rock and roll and you get Siege of Power.

siegeofpowermetal.bandcamp.com

facebook.com/Siege-Of-Power-736348069884961/