On March 27, 2021, Brazil’s legendary Death Metal masters HEADHUNTER D.C. played a show at the Dopesmoke Festival in Feira de Santana, in the state of Bahia… In 2021? Wait a minute… Didn’t the entire world come to a halt at that point? Yes, it did. But this show was one of those silly events without an audience, that music fans could check out on YouTube, in order to still see their favorite bands play live. I didn’t understand that back then and I still don’t get it nowadays, but in HEADHUNTER D.C.’s case it at least resulted in the first recording with bass player Stanley Serravalle (who was part of the band from 2020 to 2023) and the last performance of guitarist George Lessa, who was replaced by current six-stringer Danilo Coimbra shortly after. So, in retrospect, the show has also some sort of historical value. To avoid the annoying silence in-between the songs (due to the lack of an audience), interludes have been added to the recordings afterwards, which was a pretty cool idea and worked out very well. This way it isn’t that obvious that no one was actually there to bang their heads and raise their fists. The audio part of the show was newly mixed and mastered exclusively for this album, which increased the sound quality a lot (!), so don’t expect the rather poor YouTube quality here (if you have seen that already). Musically speaking, the band is impressive as always, delivering their Metal Of Death with full conviction. The setlist is great (only a bit short), covering all of their albums: ‘Dawn Of Heresy’, ‘Stillborn Messiah’, ‘…And The Sky Turns To Black…’, ‘Forgotten Existence’, ‘Am I Crazy?’ and ‘Hail The Metal Of Death’ are featured on this CD release. Two additionally performed songs (‘One Thousand Apocalypses’ and ‘Rise Of The Damned’) are missing here, because they will be on their next album. So, you better look out for that in the hopefully not too distant future! Instead you are getting four songs from a real live show (with an audience), when HEADHUNTER D.C. performed at the Palco Do Rock Festival back in 2017: ‘Decomposed’, ‘Death Vomit’, ‘God’s Spreading Cancer’ and the POSSESSED cover ‘The Exorcist’. This is another historic event, since it was the last show in Brazil for guitarist Paulo Lisboa, before he left the band after their South American mini tour with MORTEM in June of the same year. In direct comparison, this show is a good proof that Metal bands definitely need an audience to unleash their full energy. The sound is a bit weaker here and the performance probably also not as tight as on the 2021 songs, but damn, the band was really on fire. Love that! So, at the end of the day, “Pandemic Unredemption” turns out to be another nice addition to your HEADHUNTER D.C. collection. It is available as a digipak CD, with a 12-page booklet, featuring lots of pics from that event and liner notes from the band’s vocalist Sérgio “Baloff” Borges. Also included is a poster of the pretty cool cover artwork (with additional live pics) and a logo sticker. For more information and ordering details, check out www.facebook.com/headhunterdc or www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100064591077318