Pooyan Ahmadi - Hollow Burgeon, There Is No Virgin

Death metal is the juice that flows in Pooyan Ahmadi’s veins and this is what he delivers with this first release from his one-man, personal project. Deeply inspired by bands as Morbid Angel, Immolation and Krisiun, Pooyan’s music could be perfectly described as an attempt to blend those three. Or at least this is what you’ll come up with once you push the play button on “Hollow Burgeon, There Is No Virgin”. 

On the positive aspects of this first full length are definitely the vocals. Pooyan does great inhales and knows how to twist and bend his vocal cords to produce really deep and heavy inhales but also some really thin and ghoul-ish shrieks. On the music section, you can find really good riffs here and there and some great ideas on how to bind them together with vocals so that it kind of creates a flow. Just listen to the very first track. 'Rattlesnake's Roar', starting with a nice swirling Morbid Angel-ish riff and a nice inhale that ends with a shriek. Here’s where the good things end though. 

Unfortunately, there are some major flaws in this one. The basic one is the dull drum programming. The riff themselves are cool but not the most interesting out there. The combination and the alternation between them in the tracks is not the brightest either. One riff follows the next just like that. This is something that could be worked better in my opinion. The riff succession in the tracks is a key parameter in a great song. A song that doesn’t have the best riffs could be saved by adding great drums and here the drums sound monotonous. One type of blast beat, one type of thrash 4/4 beat and some embellishments here and there and that’s it. Gives the impression of hastiness and it kind of brings everything to the dull side. 

You can definitely find bright moments here and there and you can tell that Pooyan has a lot more to give in this genre which he definitely seems to worship. But now it just won’t work. Production-wise the album is not bad. Big sound, heavy and muddy as it should be, emphasizing on the vocals. Not the best out there but we definitely wait more from Pooyan as he seems he’s got a lot to give! 

2 / 5 STARS