COMMANDER from Munich in Germany are active for nearly two decades now and return with their third output entitled "Fatalis (The Unbroken Circle)". Unfortunately I am not familiar with any of their old material so I just started with their new stuff and the opener and title track starts really promising. The guys play a quite groovy version of Death Metal, changing between mid- and uptempo in the vein of maybe BOLT THROWER, but partly more brutal with fast blast-beats and deeper grunts yet similar groovy and especially the lead melodies are very catchy and make this track already pretty enjoyable. ‘Locust Infestation’ is really good Thrash Metal with a pretty good doze of Death Metal. I guess this track will be a wrecking ball live and could also have fitted to DEW-SCENTED a bit, but with a bit more melodic approach. ‘Chaos Awakening’ is midtempo Death Metal and again groovy as hell. Especially the grunts really fit pretty well and a quite enjoyable lead enriches this good track before punching in the face again. ‘New Slave Democracy’ is groovy moshing Death Metal with thrashy riffing while ‘Insidious Greed’ starts paying homage to DEATH before again grooving the guts out of the listener. I could go on and on, but all tracks sound really matured and surely grew over a lot of years as all kinds of classic Death Metal of the last twenty years gets combined to a real groovy cocktail. COMMANDER is another proof that the German Death Metal scene is stronger than ever and really doesn’t need to hide behind international acts. Rounded off by a killer production, mastered and mixed by Patrick W. Engel and a really nice cover artwork (done by Remi Cooper) this output is really worth checking out. More info at the following sources: www.facebook.com/commandermetalmunich, www.mdd-records.de