According to the press release, these Poles are 'legends of death metal' off the back of their debut album from 1993. Well, although there is a slew of bands who adopted the moniker of Armagedon (with various differently spelled variants), I can openly admit I've never heard of these guys before.
With a monsterous gap of 16 years between the allegedly legendary debut and this their 2nd full length release, the Polish scene has exploded exponentially. These days Poland serves up all kinds of extreme awesomeness, and Armagedon don't have problems fitting in. Overall, the main sound is extremely Vader-esque – the vocals especially have the same gruffly tonal twang of Peter Wieczarek. The production is of a fantastic quality, allowing the perfectly played sterile guitars to come slicing through the mix like a surgeons scalpel. The drum battery is as you'd expect from a Polish death metal album – in fact, the album as a whole is pretty much how you'd expect it to sound when being described as a Polished Polish death metal album. Luckily these guys have some meaty riffage to make them stand out from the growling legions of technically perfect anger machines pumping out album after album of entirely listenable (if not a little generic at times) death metal. The biggest curveball that the band throw into their sound is a few bits of hit or miss keyboard work, which really adds nothing to their overall sound due to their sparse nature.
Whether Armagedon are legends or not, this album proves they know their stuff when it comes to releasing a feast of riffs the size of meteors, raining down on the listeners poor unsuspecting head amongst the volcanic blastbeats and bestial growls. What is certain is that in 'Death Then Nothing', they've created a worthy comeback which, whilst not hoisting them up to legendary status in it's own right, certainly should make any extreme metal fan sit up and take a deep interest.
http://www.myspace.com/armagedonofficial
