AXIS POWERS
"Marching Towards Destruction" (Pulverised; 2009)
Reviewed by Metal Mark
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 and forth 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 so 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.
When they hit, Axis Powers keep everything going fast and furious without letting up. This is what keeps them sounding just like a retro thrash/death act. Unfortunately, there are several songs where they 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 at 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 certainly enough here to deserve a listen, but hopefully Axis Powers will build on what the interesting ideas they showed in part on this album.
For more information, check out http://www.myspace.com/axispowersdeathmetal.
Rating Guide:
A classic. This record will kick your ass.
Killer. Not a classic but it will rock your world.
So-so. You've heard better.
Pretty bad. Might make a nice coaster.
Self explanatory. Just the sight of the cover makes you wanna hurl.
Copyright ? 2009 by R. Scott Bolton. All rights
reserved.
Revised:
01 Jul 2024 12:10:25 -0400.
