I have to admit that I don’t like this whole myspace-trend, in fact I hate it. But the truth is that to some extend, myspace has proved to be a very useful medium since people have the opportunity to listen to some fresh material and receive last-minute updates directly from the bands. In fact, most official band websites have become rather obsolete in content, making even more people turn to myspace. That’s more or less why I consider myspace as a "necessary evil" and have also created a rather sloppy (and totally uninteresting) page there. One day I received a "friend request" by a band called HAIL OF BULLETS. When I first read the band’s name and saw the rather simple logo, I thought that HAIL OF BULLETS would be some mediocre Death / Thrash Metal band I could live without. But after visiting their page I soon realized how wrong I have been! The first thing I witnessed was the band’s vocalist: Martin Van Drunnen (if you don’t know who Martin is, then you should stop reading at this very instance and go buy the first two ASPHYX and PESTILENCE albums). The remaining band is consisted of Paul Baayens and Stephan Gebedi on guitars (both in THANATOS), Theo Van Eekelen on bass (HOUWITSER) and Ed Warby (AYREON, STAR ONE, GOREFEST) on drums. So as you can realize, I (like most of you) was really curious to listen to what the guys were up to… The first song that started streaming was ‘General Winter’. After a few seconds, when the song crushed in I was fucking blown away! We are talking about total ASPHYX worship all the way… seems like Martin’s singing on the self-titled ASPHYX record (even hints from ‘Prelude To The Unhonoured Funeral’ appear in the slow parts of ‘General Winter’). Without any exaggeration this could be one of the best, most solid and diverse real Death Metal songs I heard in ages, it’s simply incredible! But don’t fool yourselves, HAIL OF BULLETS is not an ASPHYX revivalist or whatever! They surely share a lot with the ASPHYX aesthetics (as well as BOLT THROWER and loads of old Swedish Death Metal acts) but they have a distinct sound and an identity of their own. We are talking about outstanding material here, no cheap fillers, no boring riffs, everything sounds simply great. Dan Swanö is responsible for the production guaranteeing a huge, perfect and "modern" Death Metal sound that brings to surface the real potential of the band. Overall I was more than excited from HAIL OF BULLETS and I decided to buy the promo since the band is offering it for sale for a limited period of time and in limited quantities. The bad things started when I read the blog entry concerning the sale of the promo CD: "The overwhelmingly positive response by fans and critics alike has made us decide to do a one time only, strictly limited run of our soon to be legendary 2007 promo. These will be sold exclusively through EMP Merchandising (Germany and most of Europe) and Large Popmerchandising (Benelux) and will not be available anywhere else". To begin with, I have the outmost respect not only for Martin but for all guys involved in HAIL OF BULLETS but the thing is that characterizations such as "soon to become legendary" are simply lame, no need to further comment on that. The second point is that availability of the promo is only through EMP. When I first read it I couldn’t believe my eyes. I mean, this is supposed to be an underground Death Metal release right? Who the fuck reading VOICES or listening to underground Death Metal buys stuff from EMP anyway? In the case of ordering a single promo from a "mega-webstore" like EMP, one has to pay not only 10 Euros for the promo itself but postage costs which would be no less than 5 – 8 Euros depending on where you live. And don’t forget, we are talking about a 4-track promo! I mean come on… this is no underground attitude at all. This little promo should have been available for sale through the band or small underground labels for a much cheaper price and since the layout is really simple it should include some additional stuff (perhaps a sticker or poster or something) to increase value for money. I only hope Martin and the guys read this and change their mind cause they did some really killer work in this promo and it’s pity to lose attitude-points with such wrong moves. www.myspace.com/hailoffuckenbullets