Australia's Virus and Spain's Kevlar Skin teamed up for this brutal split CD. Both of the bands play death metal, but are pretty much different.

Virus is all about short songs. They are made up of a couple of riffs, so expect no variety. Grinding, very rhythmic death metal is what this Australian fellow does all by himself. The vocals are robot growling, which is funny for a while. The lyrics... I guess there are some! The guitar sound is hefty and compressed, but the drums tend to vanish under it, especially during faster beats. All in all, I find Virus quite a boring band.

Kevlar Skin are much more interesting. Musically, their songs are bigger and more varying, sounding something like a mixture between Wormed and Cannibal Corpse. Kevlar Skin's part feature muddy, yet heavy demo level production. Despite being a bit muddy, all the elements can be heard. The vocals vary between good low growl and pig voice which I really can't stand. I can read the lyrics but I can't understand the voice. Pleurosis cover 'N+N' deserves some spinning, definitely.

The erratic quality make this split release quite a easy thing to forget, I'm afraid. I've heard worse things in death metal, though.

Rating: 3 (out of 10) ratings explained

Reviewed by Lane
01/12/2008 21:39