Artist: Maim
Title: Deceased to Exist
Type: Album
Label: Soulseller

Some do it well, most do it competently, only a few do it poorly. What am I talking about ? Why, reproducing the old Scandinavian death metal sound of Dismember, Grave and Entombed, of course. It seems that somewhere in the frozen north there is a factory (possibly run by Dan Seagrave) churning out identi-kit old school death metallers producing yet another stab of Left Hand Pathology. Annoyingly, most of it is eminently competent, if uninspired. It's hard to like it, and it's hard to hate it – the eternal dilemma of the reviewer – how to properly describe in mere words the audio equivalent of the colour beige. Deceased to Exist, a fancy way of saying Killing Yourself to Live if I ever heard it, is not an average album. So will it be one of the exceptional kind, or one of the execrable ?

Exceptional. Honestly. This is an album that had me nostalgically remembering the old classics, while at the same time bringing some fresh ideas to the table. Of course, being devotees of the old school, Maim do play to genre tropes. The guitars are accordingly as gnarled and rough as old tree trunks, while the vocals are gruff and laid with subtle echo effects to bring that “ancient evil” vibe to the fore. The bass sound is like a completely morbid take on Motorhead, while the D-beat led drums come straight out of 1989. So far so typical. It's on twin fronts that this particular old school offensive really wins out on the campaign front: song writing and production.

Song writing is an arcane craft that seems to elude many modern bands. Yet Maim hit paydirt again and again; the sinister, macabre atmosphere of “Covet Death” puts the entire back catalogue of some of their peers to shame. The slow-burning sepulcheral terror of the music brings to mind badly-painted album covers of undead sorcerers beckoning with skeletal fingers. Elsewhere, the barely harnessed fury of “Nuclear Funeral” shows the kind of brooding malevolence so lacking from today's generation, alongside the more practised breed of brutality. The production is also just about perfect, not a term I am using hyperbolically on this occasion. Managing to retain just enough mouldy, dusty dry sound effect to acknowledge and nod to the old school, but adding the modern punch and clarity to the armoury, I don't think I have heard a better sound for OSDM. A modern cult classic ? I think so. The old school seems to have a new headmaster. Deceased to exist indeed.

http://www.myspace.com/maimdeathmetal