Artist: Bombs Of Hades
Country: Sweden
Label: Blood Harvest
Formats: 7″ EP
Year: 2008
I should’ve known better, really. I had this 7” EP here for quite some time before I started listening to it, the cover artwork for this EP was holding me back. But I should’ve known better. This was released through Blood Harvest Records, a label that I never caught on releasing crap. But, what should have convinced me from the start was the fact that Bombs Of Hades has Jonas Stålhammar of Macabre End/God Macabre fame and Magnus Forsberg from Tribulation in the line-up. Damn!
Though the band started out as a crust/punk kind of band they quickly caught themselves playing old school Swedish death metal – once death metal runs in your veins you just can’t get it out, so it seems. Amazingly catchy yet damn heavy death metal the way it was made long time ago. It might not come as a total surprise that it sounds a bit like God Macabre. It has all the trademarks of the Swedish sound; the buzz-saw guitar, the pounding, almost rock ‘n’ roll, kind of drums and the harsh vocals. Yet, it doesn’t have the chaotic kind of song structure that most of the bands from the late 80’s and early 90’s had – and a band like Necrovation had in their demo-period. This makes Bombs Of Hades a bit more accessible and rather easy to listen to. Last but not least, the production is flawless and is definitely the icing of the cake here.
It might be Swedish-death-metal-by-numbers but isn’t that the way we want to have it? I think the world is already too full with those crappy overly melodic bands like At The Gates and The Haunted. I’d rather stick to bands like Bombs Of Hades. BUT, different cover artwork would be a great idea!
