DROWNING
Age Old Nemesis
(Bones Brigade Records)
40:11min

This France-based formation plays catchy, quite fierce and straight old -schoolish Death Metal with a few Thrash and Hardcore influences. The result is an interesting combination as you may guess. The band incorporates groovy, disturbing MORBID ANGEL-like riffing with the power of Thrash Metal. I like the result indeed. This ouput’s production is cool, too. It’s transparent, the guitars are mighty, the drums don’t sound too artificial, they are natural and add a brutal, aggressive rhythmical basis. Thus, no critique concerning the production. The lyrics deal with the absurdisms of war and personal observations, I presume. They just fit into my general impression of DROWNING’s music – probably the lyrics express anger and annoyance about current happenings, degradation in our culture, etc. But that’s my very personal interpretation which I won’t extend here to avoid boredom and, of course, vagueness! The music, as mentioned at the outset of this comment, can be described as a combination of old-schoolish Death Metal, Thrash and Hardcore elements. DROWNING mainly make use of groovy guitar sequences that are supported by the rhythm section in an appropriate way. A big part of the material can be located in the mid-tempo area which I think is cool in comparison to nowaday’s blast beat inflation. Occasionally, DROWNING make use of U.S. stylish blast-beats, too. But this trait isn’t exaggerated! My impression is that there is an apparent MORBID ANGEL influence woven into the songs which is a cool thing to do when you want to create a gloomy and malignant atmosphere in your music. Of course, I have to state now that DROWNING aren’t an uninspired band that just copies others and pursues stylistic theft… and this I do because the latter points aren’t the case! DROWNING play cool Death Metal with a lot of energy and power. This I can detect. They have recorded a solid and professional output that enthuses me. Normally, this kind of Metal is not so much my cup of tea. But every now and then I happen to stumble over a release that is convincing… and DROWNING definitely managed to do that. Band contact: Reggie Andre, 42 rue Jules Guesde, 94140 Alfortville, France, email: drowndcp@hotmail.com, Label: Bones Brigade, B.P. 31 62140 Hesdin, France, email: bonesbrign@aol.com.

F. Cthulhu E.

F. Cthulhu E.

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