Back To 90's Old-School Death Metal - Wrathrone / Spiral Wounds / Necrodium

From Great Dane Records it comes a three split album with three samples of old school death metal bands Wrathrone, Spiral Wounds and Necrodium, each one with a particular view of OSDM. The artwork by Sebastian Mockers is also as old school as the music, getting the spirit of that time, do you remember the flyers with corpses and creepy pictures? Some times we talk about old school, but it seems that those times and style never dissapeared, there are many examples of albums that followed those paths until these days, so for me there is not a impassable wall between old school and current death metal. Well, in this case we have three bands and three old school styles, let´s see.

Wrathrone is a band from Finland formed in 2008 and plays a dense and lowtone death metal with some melodic touches, yes, in the vein of Finnish style, reminding bands from end of 80´s and first 90´s, with a cavernous voice, similar to Avulsed vocalist Dave Rotten, the line up of the band is L.Holm – guitars, V.Mäkinen – guitars, P.Wärri – bass, M. Vehmas – vocals and Mr. Ruocho – drums, they have three albums, very interestings. In this Split they play 'To The Pillar´s Shadow', 'Vermin Womb' and 'Survive The Collapse', three new songs maintaining the vein of the band, with some influences of Swedish and Finnish death metal, dark, melodic, dense, ready for headbanging?

Spiral Wounds from Italy, in this case is also old school but with other view, the voice is sometimes screamings and others low deathmetal style, both are aggressive. Riffs alternate melodic and death, but different to the previous band, they mix mid tempos and some groovy with other faster but not too much, the melodic parts are catchy and others are melancholic, taken some doom style, it can reminds a lot of bands, but not copy, they take their own influences and know how to use them. The band is formed by Sandro - guitars and drum programming, Tato - vocals and Patrizio - bass. The songs are 'Dying In Solitude', 'Steps Across', 'Uber Feral Winds' and 'The Espire'.

Necrodium is the third band here, and now is time for old school brutal death metal, the style is similar to old Pyrexia, Suffocation, Cannibal Corpse with different nuances, voice of Lin Morbid is sick, direct from agony, riffs of this band are crushing, and mixing with blast beats or slow drumming, and also they have some technical parts. They are here since 2006 and have released some demos, an album and two splits. The band is formed by Lin Morbid - vocals, Henkka Disembowelment - guitars, K-Mutilator - drums, and TJ Destructor - bass. Tracks are 'Carnal Addiction', 'Compulsive mutilating Disorder', 'Modern Crucifixion' and 'Violent Bludgeonings'.

The general feeling is of a good album, a good sample of these three bands with their songs regarding this work, we will be attentive to their respective releases. Three different ways of old school death metal, but never forgotten.

STARS 3.5 / 5