One of the worse things a music fan can witness is to see a genre they love be picked up by the corporate world, watered down, stripped of its soul, and turned into something to be marketed to clueless teenagers with a voracious desire to consume with mommy and daddy’s money. It happened to punk, it happened to heavy metal in the 1980s, and it happened to alternative metal in the late 1990s. In the mid-2000s through today it is happening to death metal, a genre that should by all means have been immune to this happening with its harsh guttural vocals, blast beats, heavily distorted guitars, rejection of the verse-chorus-verse formula, and filled with lyrics that can be censuring or morbid and almost always bleak. Nonetheless, with the advent of deathcore the record labels and marketing voodoo wizards of Hot Topic and its ilk found a way to warp death metal in something to sell to the zombie-like mall crawling teenagers of the world.
The normal-fitting jean clad men (and the rare woman) in their normal-fitting black t-shirts that made up the bands and fans of death metal were eschewed in favoring of high pitched shrieking teenagers and people in their 20s who are mentally perpetually stuck in high school in skinny jeans and makeup with salon-crafted hairdos. These people started intruding legitimate death metal shows in their hoodies to swat invisible flies and have imaginary ninja fights where the mosh pit used to be.
While deathcore has been growing and attaining near-mainstream acceptance, or rather as much acceptance as a genre of extreme metal can, death metal has been seemingly forgotten and left behind. Several of the legends still tour and release new albums but the genre has been in dire need of some new blood. New bands need to carry that death metal banner as the likes of Morbid Angel and Bolt Thrower reach the age that they need to get semi-regular prostate exams, have to cut their hair as not to look like Hulk Hogan, and are more apt to be looking at life insurance policies than they are to jump into a circle pit.
This is where Hail of Bullets comes in. Formed in 2006 they fully acknowledge the greats that came before them citing the likes of Autopsy, Celtic Frost, and Death as influences. Unlike the deathcore acts that cite bands such as these as influences in a pitiful attempt to gain credit while churning out stop-and-go riffed and breakdown filled shriek-along garbage to sell t-shirts at Hot Topic, Hail of Bullets pay actual tribute to the bands of yesteryear. On their 2008 release …Of Frost and War they showed the world that true Swedish death metal has not been forgotten and continue to do so with their new album On Divine Winds.
You would be a fool to make the mistake of dismissing Hail of Bullets because they are Swedish. This is not more melodic Gothenburg fodder full of pointless wankery and inexplicable awful clean choruses (I’m looking at you In Flames). Hail of Bullets has brought back that legendary Swedish tone and delivers a meaty-riffed chainsaw guitar onslaught.
The entire album is about World War 2 and starts off with an orchestral introduction that harkens back to that time period and ends with the sounds of planes crashing as it seamlessly switches into the second track “Operation Z”. As the first buzzing riffs, double kick, and Martin van Duren’s classic sounding death growl kick in you are set for 48 minutes of blazing the warpath across the battles and locations of WW2. The album flows excellently and there are no weak or unnecessary tracks. There are no pointless solos to be found or being technical for the sake of being technical. Hail of Bullets is here to shred with purpose and deliver nothing but meaty, wholesome goodness.
If you are ready to take a stand against pig squeals, shrieks, breakdowns, skinny jeans, androgynous dudes in eyeliner, and wannabe Power Rangers I implore you to pick up Hail of Bullets’ On Divine Winds. There is no filler and no flair to this album. It is an unstoppable tank of classic tinged death metal filled with compelling riffs, spot-on drum work, and sports one of the best death metal vocalists to appear on the scene since Mikael Akerfeldt.
On Divine Winds releases October 11th on Metal Blade Records.
You can hear tracks off this album right here on KJACK during our Witching Hour metal block or on Mount Metal on Fridays from 4 to 6 PM.
Recommended If You Like: Bloodbath, Bolt Thrower, Carcass (1989-1991), Death, Dismember, Entombed
Recommended Tracks: “Operation Z”, “Full Scale War”, “Strategy of Attrition”
Further Information: Hail of Bullets’ Official Website, Hail of Bullets’ Official MySpace
