Speed, technicality, sickness and mayhem. These things can surely be found on death metal band Internecine's sole album. 'The Book of Lambs' is an outburst of Jared Anderson, who passed away in 2006, in his early thirties. Mr. Anderson was well known from his bass and vocal works in Morbid Angel and Hate Eternal. Here he performed all but drumming, which was done by Tony Laureano (Angelcorpse, ex-Malevolent Creation, ex-Nile etc.) and Derek Roddy (ex-Nile, ex-Malevolent Creation etc.), and guest guitar solos by Erik Rutan (Hate Eternal, ex-Morbid Angel etc.).

"So is there quality death metal on this platter to be found?", is the main question you are asking. Yes, at least some of it is. You see, while this is extremely fast and other things mentioned at the beginning of this review, sometimes it lacks good songs. The opening triplet is my favourite Internecine stuff, ending gorgeously with catchy-as-syphilis '...For Thee I Bleed'. Internecine's death metal sounds very North American. It doesn't offer anything new, but isn't totally faceless. Think about melting Hate Eternal / Morbid Angel / Deicide / Immolation / Krisiun together. Vortex-like riffage is truly breathtaking, and Jared throws a good riff every now and then. Sometimes songs proceed with mutating one riff into various semblances or then having very different parts. I think the album works best when listened in small stages, not from start to end, simply because there is such amount of stuff to get in.

The production is badly lacking. It's a bit muffled, bass is somewhat missing and generally this is of more like demo quality. At times, the drumming isn't totally accurate. It might make this feel more organic, but this kind of technical material shouldn't have those inaccuracies. Maybe some Pro Tools fixing would have been in order... Growls consist of low and high-pitched, which is familiar but a safe choice for death metal. The lyrics are total anti-Christian uttering.

'The Book of Lambs' is partly marvellous (some of the songs and guitar performances) and partly lacking. Not an essential release, but one possible choice for the technical death metal followers.

Rating: 6½ (out of 10) ratings explained

Reviewed by Lane
03/16/2008 20:44