Artist: Hell-Born
Album: Darkness
Type: Album
Label: Witching Hour Productions

I've been a long time follower of Hell-Born, so was looking forward to checking out their most recent effort which they decided on simply calling 'Darkness'. Well, to be honest, there's not much in the way of musical darkness here, but if they had've decided to name the album after the music featured in the album, it'd be more likely to be called 'Mid-Paced Polish Death Metal Pounding'…or something.

Over the years, Hell-Born have progressed a lot in terms of straightforward songwriting ability and dynamic fortitude from a band that started out as a mere side project to Damnation back in 1996 with their self titled debut E.P. But, in recent years, they've pretty much fixated on the sound that they've carried through to this album. For those who aren't aware of the deeper history of Hell-Born, you might be interested to know that they are now the full time job of Baal and Les (former early members of one of Poland's biggest extreme exports Behemoth). At times Hell-Born's sound isn't far removed from latter day Behemoth's, albeit tending to stick firmly to the more mid-paced to slower end of their spectrum. The sterile production suits the calculated, cutting rhythmic style of the music perfectly, with the pounding bassy guitars driving each note home with all the subtlety of sledgehammer. Punctuated with Baal's growls and the pneumatic drumwork of Vader's most recent acquisition, Paul Jaroszewicz, this all makes for a feast of Polish styled death metal. Although these guys started out playing a hybrid of thrashy death metal and black metal in their early days, they have certainly moved 100% into the realm of death metal totality. Personally I preferred their earlier sound slightly better, merely due to the fact there was more variety in their riffage, but still, their modern guise is still somewhat convincing as death metal hopefuls.

Whilst not exactly mind-blowing or life changing, this is packed with thick, meaty riffs throughout. With that said, some of the tracks are definitely stronger than others (as per usual, the opening three tracks are by far the best, with middle sagging slightly before finishing up with a strong album closer). However, there are 9 regular tracks, with 6 bonus live tracks of earlier material so there's a lot to get your teeth into, including a taster of earlier material for the uninitiated. It's not an immediate album (in fact, the first few spins left me decidedly cold). But given time, I eventually realised that 'Darkness' is a genuine slab of mid-paced modern styled death metal.

http://www.myspace.com/hellbornofficial
http://www.myspace.com/witchinghourprod

Lars Christiansen

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