Pulverised Records
2009
Sweden's Axis Powers play a fairly loose brand of death metal with a strong war theme flowing through most of the songs. They bounce back between run of the mill sounding bursts and some more inspired bits. When they are on the band calls on huge pounding bass lines, driving drums and some off the wall ripping guitar bursts. They even go as far as to tuck in some punk edges on occasion. The vocals never get beyond being the typical growling variety, but the music makes up for it enough on these songs. On the times when they hit Axis Powers keep everything going and furious without letting up. This is what keeps them sounding just like a retro thrash/death act. Unfortunately there are several songs where all too willingly fall into the trap of plugging out the kind of death metal that we have all heard too many times. The production does help this album greatly. Everything is certainly brought up enough in the mix to really be heard and the pace changes sound sharp. Even on the more average tracks they still manage to keep everything moving along well enough. I think they took aim and making at extreme death/thrash effort. They show splashes of potential and were never boring, but they could certainly dig in a little deeper and progress even more. There seems to be a tendency for them to start strong, but quickly slip into material that may be comfortable for them to play, but not challenging enough to really be that interesting to their listeners. There is enough to deserve a listen, but hopefully they build on what the interesting ideas they showed in part on this album.
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