Nihilistic Holocaust strikes back again. This time this French underground label presents us a 4-way-split CD-R with three French undergound formations and one well known obscure band from down under. This disc includes a total of 17 tracks and it starts off with CARMINA from France. The style of them can be described as brutal old school Death Metal and reminds me in the slower, mid tempo parts a little bit on old BOLT THROWER or GRAVE. The four tracks by this Death squad have some good moments and a track like ‘Rouge Sang’ is a cool underground track. The band will also release a split EP together with MORGUE soon. For me the winners on this compilation. The second band on this disc is AMETHYSTE. They have been active since 1993 and released serveral demos but none of them led to a deal. If you listen to the three tracks here you know why. They are cruising in the waters of brutal Death with some Grind parts but everything sounds quite boring and uninspired… the next one is ATROPHY, also from France. This quartet was formed in 1999 and started as an old school Death Metal outfit. Now they evolved their style into a more brutal and technical direction. If you want you can roughly describe their stuff as a mixture of Suffocation / Hate Eternal combined with Cynic / Atheist parts but without reaching the class of the bands mentioned before (as they are exceptional). So you get here a lot of tempo changes, breaks mixed with (melodic) leads and blast. Unfortunately the production of the songs turned out a little bit muddy so you can’t exactly hear everything clear. Last but not least we have DARKLORD from Australia here. The featured stuff here is the "By The Force Of Sacred Magic Rites" demo / MCD from 1993. People who are familiar with that release know what they can expect here. There are only two possibilities: either you like it or you hate it… there’s only black and white here. This material is by far the most bestial stuff recorded by these Australians (today they sound much more polished). Imagine a kind of low tuned stuff mixed with bestial Black Metal and vocals which aren’t from this world. They sound like they where directly recorded in Neanderthal… Beherit’s pukes on "The Oath Of Black Blood" sound beautiful compared to this pandemonic outbreaks. Like a low tuned hair dryer, hehehe. So you get light and darkness on this disc… unfortunately more darkness. Maniacs into total underground stuff can get in contact with Nihilistic Holocaust at http://nihilistic.voila.net. The price for this piece of plastic is € 4 incl. P&P.