HEADS FOR THE DEAD, an international Death Metal project by Jonny Petersson of too many bands to mention and REVEL IN FLESH’s Ralf Hauber, released their fourth album “Never Ending Night Of Terror” through Pulverised Records. Their approach to Death Metal feels very cinematic with heavy use of keyboards for atmosphere and melodic guitar solos. If you would strip away the downtuned riffing, heavy drumming and guttural vocals you might end up with a Progressive Rock soundtrack of a horror movie like the ones they clearly reference in their lyrics and general aesthetics. If you need more proof of this check out the last track, a tribute to GOBLIN, an Italian Prog Rock band that scored horror movie classics. In a way, this release feels like it almost belongs to the Symphonic Metal category. They were probably aiming for something like NECROPHAGIA, but created something that sounds a bit, at least theoretically, like CRADLE OF FILTH minus the vampires, substituting them instead for psychotic serial killers and demonic possessions. The rhythm guitar which should provide the riffs necessary for a band to sound unmistakenly Death Metal here almost takes a secondary role, providing a heavy foundation for the more atmospheric parts of the music and only sometimes becoming the main focus. Taking this into consideration, the music still fits the Death Metal category on paper. Guttural low vocals – check, blast beats and double bass drumming – check, horror movie references (lyrics, artwork, samples) – check, downtuned guitars that play palm muted power chords and sometimes fast tremolo picked riffs – check. Even the band offers an alternative musical genre for themselves, Horror Metal Of Death, but also mentioning that if you need a simple black or white categorization of the music, Death Metal is the most fitting. The drumming here is probably the element that most firmly ties everything together under this umbrella. On the other hand, the romantic sounding lead guitar work provided by Matt Moliti of SENTIENT HORROR is really fitting for the general atmosphere of the songs and sounds just right without any extreme guitar acrobatics, but playing at a level where you know he could easily blow you away, it’s just that the songs don’t need any of that. It isn’t cheesy either, it’s just right. Overall I’d recommend this album to anyone who’s not too nitpicky about what Death Metal is and is not, and maybe more interested in listening to heavy music inspired by horror movie soundtracks. www.facebook.com/headsforthedead, www.facebook.com/pulverisedrecords