Artist: Pandemia
Country: Czechia
Label: Hammerheart Records
Formats: LP / CD
Year: 2025
During the late 90’s and first years of the 00’s eastern Europe had a rather vibrant Death Metal scene, a scene that went very well with the region’s ever-thriving Grindcore tradition. It might not be surprising that most of the Death Metal bands had loads of influences from their Grindcore-minded peers, and vice versa. Czechia has always been a country that is more linked to their Grindcore tradition, but the country had some Death Metal going on, albeit somewhat at the margins of the genre’s global movement. Still, a band like Krabathor did receive some praise and especially the ‘Orthodox’-album has stood the test of time quite well. Slightly less interesting was Pandemia whose discography is best described as rather generic Death Metal without any significant highlights.
Therefor I was rather surprised to hear of the band’s signing to Hammerheart Records. Not so much because of the band teaming up with the label, but mainly because I had no clue the band was still around. Around the same time I also learned that the Chinese label Awakening Records reissued the band’s first two albums, a prima example that shows that basically all the good music has already been rereleased…
After having listened to ‘Darkened Devotion’ a few times now, Pandemia hasn’t really been able to change my mind. It is obvious that the band has matured a lot since their first recordings from the late 90’s and the first years of the 00’s, but the overall feeling pretty much stayed the same. On a musical level the band offers a more melodic approach and a much slicker production, but the “problem” is still that it tends to change into background music. It just lacks memorability, especially compared to the current Vader, which Pandemia is still most akin to.
Not necessarily really a poor album, but in the current constellation it is simply not enough to stand out. So it remains to be seen if ‘Darkened Devotion’ is going to change anything about the band’s stature, at least it is not “the best Death Metal album ever from the Czech Republic” as the hype text would have you believe. I’m going to give ‘Orthodox’ another listen…
