Sargatanas Reign from Sweden has been at it for quite a while now (since 1997, to be precise), they started out with playing black metal, but along the way decided to switch to death metal. On their second full-length 'Bloodwork: Techniques Of Torture', a very decent version of modern brutal American death is at offer. This blend is not so much focussed on an inhuman velocity of the songs, but rather implements a nice groove in them. There is really a lot of variation in the tempos (slow, medium and even high-speed thrashy parts), it's just that some sequences come along maybe just once too often per song. Furthermore is the resemblance of the main riff of 'Blood Katharsis' to that of Morbid Angel's 'Where The Slime Live' very, very striking and it seems as if some of the freaky guitar experiments are inspired by MA's main man Trey Azagthoth. Fortunately, Sargatanas Reign is far from a complete carbon copy of the masters of death metal and they have written enough songs that will make you bang your head in approval. It's just a pity that they fall a little bit short of creating something really special here. |
