Artist: Serpent Son
Title: Self Titled
Type: EP
Label: Self Released

I was trawling an internet forum recently, not one specifically aimed at metal fans I might add, when I came across a thread – the topic being along the lines of “who is the most extreme band on the planet?” There wasn’t much response, but the very thought of it just made me roll my eyes with derision. I would consider myself an extremist, but listening to a band purely because they are more brutal or extreme than the next band is something that just seems pointless and very childish. I don’t want to dismiss an entire genre, but really I do find a lot of death metal bands a bit on the silly side. In one corner you have the bands that are all trying to out-brutalise each other and end up sounding like someone demolished a row of houses and stuck a tape recorder in the rubble to capture the noise, with some poor trapped rottweiler nearby barking away for help. In the other corner are those bands that try to out-wank each other…er…not in the sense of a gay orgy but guitarists who think if they don’t play at least one note per second they will self-destruct. Technicality for its own sake (look up Braindrill for a recent example of such an atrocity).

Serpent Son take things back to basics. These four tracks are old school death metal in the vein of such Floridian luminaries as Morbid Angel and Death. They take a real stripped back approach to song-writing with more focus on penning solid tunes rather than being downright brutal. ‘Four Crowns’ gives the drumkit a right old pounding, while the riffs are downtuned, dirty and downright mean. I do like the solos here too, they sound suitably melodic yet crude in their approach and am reminded of Chuck Schudliner in parts. It’s a sinister opening to ‘Angel or Demon’ which sounds like the backwards masking approach is in effect and hiding something demonic, before bristling in with a deathly thrash assault. Again, there’s a neat little guitar solo that adds a splash of colour to proceedings, and then ‘Apocalypse (The End Is Near) takes things down to a grimy unhurried pace that breaks things up pretty well before the final race for the finish line.

There’s a real down and dirty vibe to this in terms of production, and certainly there are no frills to be found – this is just three hairy blokes making a bit of noise and they do it pretty well. It’s very rough around the edges but the potential is certainly there and fans of old school death metal ought to check this shit out!

http://www.myspace.com/serpentson6six6