Sanctification are from Sweden and it can be heard. Their brutal death metal is very Swedish, but they also have some USA death metal influences in their music (something like Malevolent Creation / new Cannibal Corpse). After 'Demo 01-02' and debut full length album 'Misanthropic Salvation' (2003) on Remission Records, Sanctification are hunting for a new record deal.

Riffs are generic, even though some are catchy and good. Hyperspeed and chunkier shredding. There's no guitar solos, but some more melodic bits here and there. Quite downtuned guitars. Drummer likes to play fast, since most of this 12 minutes is graced with fast double kick drum attack. I like his cymbal use (rolls plus not just same ol' basic playing). Thankfully there's some slower parts, totally suitable for deep headbanging. In my ears songs are very similar, older live ones too (good sound and performance no doubt). Vocals are usual low-ish growling, but words are comprehensible. This was recorded at Abyss Studio with Peter Tägtgren (must be him who makes that ugly sound in the middle part on song #1), so it sounds modern, but somewhat plastic, especially kick and snare drums.

While two new songs have good drive in them and aren't shit, they also offer nothing new into death metal genre. Same goes with older ones. A clear case of "this is what we wanna play" syndrome. Nothing wrong with that, but I got a pile of albums full of similar music. By the way, this is available for free download at the band's website, so interested people should check it out.

Reviewed by Lane
01/18/2005 15:19