With this new album Denmark’s EXMORTEM is not only getting really close to the qualities of the latest American Death Metal releases, they even managed to leave all their country mates behind pretty easily! Forget about all those Hardcore infected pseudo Death Metal lunatics such as KONKHRA, ILLDISPOSED, GROPE etc. – this is the real deal! “Pestilence Empire”, EXMORTEM’s fourth full length (and first for new partners in crime, Osmose Productions), is nothing but a deadly assault of technical, yet very intense and brutal Death Metal in the vein of the uprising new generation that is currently developing out of a style originally created by MORBID ANGEL. So far this rather new movement was dominated by American acts such as HATE ETERNAL, PESSIMIST, INTERNICINE and the likes. But EXMORTEM are about to change this for sure! The energy of the nine featured tracks is incredibly explosive and the whole album lives off a very convincing and matured sounding songwriting, extremely strong musicianship and a powerful, crushing production (courtesy of Antfarm Studios in Aarhus, Denmark). EXMORTEM certainly won’t redefine the Death Metal genre with this album (as it’s by no means what I would label original in style and overall writing), but I couldn’t care less as long as the result is such a killer! “Pestilence Empire” is more than just a worthy follow-up to last year’s “Berzerker Legions” – this album should easily turn EXMORTEM into one of the leading forces of the new wave of Death Metal! Highly recommended!