Very cool bandname… I suppose that somehow everyone of us is a little mentally amputated, otherwise we probably wouldn’t enjoy all the musical “noise” so much that we consume on a regular base…; -) But anyway, MENTAL AMPUTATION is a very promising new act from Abtsgmünd / Germany, that has been around since 1998 now, but “Mass Crisis” is still their first and only (demo) release. Nothing wrong with that – in their case it was actually a quite good decision as they obviously preferred to wait a little longer and then release something with superior quality instead of boring everyone with tons of unnecessary shitty rehearsal type outputs. Their musical focus is definitely the brutal US style Death Metal, you know – the type of material that lives off shredding lowtuned riffing, deep grunted vocals and sheer ultimate power. And hey, they’re doing all this in a very convincing manner! But it seems that this formular alone was not exactly satisfying enough for them, because here and there they tend to incorporate moody and rather melodic interludes in their songs, and that gives their material a lot more variety and depth. At first I kinda disliked those parts as I figured they’d destroy the overall brutal approach of their music. But in the meantime I learned to appreciate them more and more. They are done very well and only enrich the material, making the brutal parts sound even more brutal afterwards. In the song ‘Equinox’ the overall moody atmosphere in combination with the guttural vocals kinda remind me on older AMORPHIS, while it’s usually the more melodic Metal type stuff that these guys are mixing in. 5 songs (+ intro), good production and pro-looking packing – all in all very well done! So, don’t hesitate to contact them for gigs, available merchandise, CD prices and ordering information or whatever at this address: mentalamputation@gmx.de