I think it's a pity that the co-operation between Hammerheart Records and one of Hollands oldest Death / Thrash acts THANATOS is over again already. I mean, the label did such a good job on the re-issues of the first two THANATOS records as well as on the re-union album "Angelic Encounters" that I had big hopes in the future of the band after all. But time marches on, the contract is finished by now and unfortunately both parties agreed to go seperate ways again, which means that the neverending struggle for THANATOS continues... This new MCD is the first sign of life ever since the band's comeback album and was completely financed by the members themselves. Luckily neither that nor the line-up change in the rhythm section had any negative influence on the material, which is still really cool. THANATOS 2002 have actually combined all their strongest elements of the past and created a very intense, aggressive old school Death / Thrash mixture out of that. If you listen carefully you will easily recognize some heavy influence of vintage SLAYER in the riffing, while the overall musical approach is very much in the brutal Death Metal vein. The vocals are not of the low dogbarking kind, but more in the raw, hateful Martin van Drunen (and the likes) vein, which is great as you rarely get to hear something like this these days. The MCD features 3 brandnew tracks as well as a welldone re-recording of the title track of "Angelic Encounters", which easily proves that Yuri Rinkel is a far better drummer than Aad Kloosterwaard was. As a kind of bonus you'll also get a promo video for 'In Utter Darkness' which makes this little item a worthy purchase. The CD-R comes with a professional looking colored cover and sells for 10€ / 10$ (ppd.). Write to: THANATOS, Van Langendonckstr. 28, 3076 SL Rotterdam, Holland, sgebedi@hotmail.com, www.thanatos.info, http://run.to/thanatos.

Frank Stöver

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