It seems that the underground in Switzerland goes through a kind of renaissance when it comes to Metal of Death. The scene in our neighbour country has delivered a few interesting outfits lately with NIHILO being one of them. But you can’t actually call them newcomers anymore as the band has been active since 2003 with a discography containing a couple of EPs and one longplayer already. "Dum Spiro Spero" is their newest effort and it is really a monster of an album. You can tag an old school label to this quintet but even their overall sound has this special "ancient" vibe it would fall short of calling this excellent outfit just old school. It has much more to offer. Their style is an aggressive and violent alloy of European style Death Metal incorporating some elemtents of US style and new school as well. Especially the insane blasts remind of Florida’s DEICIDE at their peak. The riffing is heavy and razor blade sharp and surprises with some violent Thrash riffs and a few D-Beat like rhythms. Although everything has a (slight) technical edge all sounds straight to the point and somehow catchy. Despite the basic ingredients the band has quite a lot of own ideas which sound refreshing and fit perfectly into this brutal assault. The addition of marvellous melodic leads and some morbid but cool synth parts even add more tasty flavours to their skilled music. This Swiss five piece manages to blend all these different elements into a unique brand of their own. The deep and gruff vocals are performed with class refining this lethal soundtrack consisting of ten fine tunes (incl. one intro). In my humble opinion the production of the album is excellent. It’s warm and not clinical. It complements the songwriting and unleashes a lot of power. Just have a listen to tracks like the smashing ‘On The Brink’, ‘Risen From The Ashes’ or ‘The Shields Of Justice’ with its eerie synth parts. But the best is yet to come. Their absolute masterpiece is the roughly 20 minutes long monumental opus and title track where the band showcases what potential is within their ranks. Killer! And last but not least: the great cover artwork is just the icing on the cake. So if you are craving for old school heaviness providing quality and originality at the same time then you shouldn’t miss NIHILO’s second full length album. Don’t hestiate to get in touch with them for more info at www.facebook.com/nihilometal.