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Artist: Death SS |
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Although Death SS have been around since 1977, the band have gone through many line-up and name changes, but the lynch pin of the band, vocalist Steve Sylvester remains to this day. The old adage that “you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover” could have been written about Death SS. The image of the band that is on the cover of the promo version of the album would have you believe that what you are in for is some sort of extreme metal onslaught, but what you actually get is something completely different. The album opens up with 'Give em Hell', a track that has been adopted by the Italian Wresting Association as their theme song. This track has metal anthem written all over it with it's towering guitars mixed with the chanting chorus, it will make you “stand up and raise your fist and fight”. The album continues with the power still turned up to max with 'Venus Gliph', another piece of gothic horror rock of the highest quality. As the opening few seconds of 'Der Golem' are revealed, you might have thought the band have gone all traditional folk with the gypsy violins at the start of the song, but soon this is thrown aside as the heavy bass kicks in and Steve Sylvester unleashes his unmistakable tones. The track soon builds into a mix of electro Goth mixed with some progressive rock elements into another anthem style song. The album is full of varying genre styles and influences throughout which make this album an extremely likeable one. The album continues with 'Shock Treatment', another song with a strong chorus section and one that you can see being a must have part of a live show. The anthemesque style of the bands sound is at its peak with the dark, dare I say it, green undertones of 'Absinthe'. Then it's time for Sylvester to use a melancholy tone in his vocals for the bands ballad ‘Another Life’. A dark ballad, but a ballad all the same. With the obligatory ballad out of the way it's back to the more rockier songs with 'Psychosect and the magnificent heavy tones of 'Heck of a Day'. The heavy tones continue with the next track 'S.I.A.G.F.O.M.', (which stands for 'Satan Is A Good Friend Of Mine'), a song that wouldn’t go amiss on an Alice Cooper album. The same could be said about 'The Healer', which is a song that reminds me very much of the stuff Alice did on his 'Dragontown' album. The pace is picked up a notch or two on 'Time To Kill', while still keeping that dark horror tone of the album, and Sylvester’s vocals really shine on this track. The band save the best till last with the epic 'The 7th Seal', a track that delves into the power metal and classic rock genres on one song. What with its rampaging guitars and choral backing vocals mixed with the early Sabbath bass lines, make this an outstanding piece of musical theatrics. The album also boasts a bonus track in the shape of 'The Four Horseman', a more gentle almost pop like song at the start, but soon the metal is unleashed and the song evolves into a mix of tempos between the two varying styles. With
the shock yet worthy win of Eurovision by Lordi the whole horror/goth
rock genre will have a new emphasis on the music world and with the
release of this new album, Death SS will surely have to take advantage
of this. With a few European festivals under their belts this
could end up being quite a formative year for the band. |
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Tracklisting:
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