This is the grand surprise at the end of the year… A pretty new three piece from the Portuguese metropolis of Porto unleashes their first album and within seconds, I feel the glory days of US Death Metal in my veins again. Those days when bands from especially Florida set the Metal world on fire with their kind of Death. But DEMENTIA 13 are far from being mere copycats. Their first full album “Ways Of Enclosure” drips of the old school blood, but it is on the one hand very refreshing and pounded out with a youthful vigour. On the other hand, the axe wielding three piece and their session musicians on drums and vocals is open minded enough to use other influences as well. The voice of Nuno Lima sounds a little bit like Mr. Karl Willets, and BOLT THROWER as well as CANCER left their mark on DEMENTIA 13. The typical morbidity of European Metal of Death is either present as some well placed Thrash Metal influences in the vein of late HEXX. And all these ideas are packed into nine songs that are just some of the finest around these days. Be it the opening grenade ‘Beyond The Grave’, the fantastic headbanger ‘Orgy Of Bloodshed’ or the either great ‘They Never Found His Body’ with the well dosed DEATH tribute in the guitar work, any song is pure delight for an old fart like me. And these three songs are just meant as a listening suggestion to check out what “Ways Of Enclosure” is all about. DEMENTIA 13’s interpretation of the ‘Halloween’ theme, Death Metal style, is as cool as the smashing ‘Conceived In Violence’ with its OBITUARY feeling or the final, a little more complex ‘Dawn Of Chaos’, a tune with a lot of samples from movies, which seems to be a special hobby of DEMENTIA 13 anyway. So, come on, let’s give this really cool album another round so I could bang my head one more time to one of my greatest finds of the year. Do yourself a favour and check out www.facebook.com/bavalives or www.memento-mori.es