Polish Hell-Born have been forging their malignant death metal in fiery pits of hell for around fifteen years now. Their fifth full length album 'Darkness' originally came out in late 2008, and was released in early 2010 as a limited edition including six bonus live tracks.

Since the beginning, Hell-Born's metal has been very much riff-oriented and with headbangable rhythms, just like, let's say Bolt Thrower's. These two bands have similar method of executing their death metal: Rolling, unstoppable force created by the whole band, that rumbles through the walls without effort. Powerful rhythm section mixing thumping bass guitar sound and aforementioned rolling beats create the basis for weighty music. The guitar work is a tad more melodic at times than previously, but still not very melodic for many a listener I bet. It is still very much riff-based, but now there are some fantastic melodic leads. Low, beary and powerful growling coats the hefty music nicely. The production job is modern without any modernity: It's punchy yet organic, just perfect for this kind of death metal.

Hell-Born still sound like themselves for a major part of this album. There's some US stylings, such as Deicide-ism on the verses of '(I Am) The Thorn in the Crown' and 'Submission', while 'Dead Don't Preach' sounds quite a bit like Immolation. When the Swedish feel creeps into the music, something like Unleashed comes to my mind. But as mentioned, Hell-Born have their own sound. They also can groove it out and enter doomier atmospheres, but still staying in death metal sphere. They can keep a listener in their grip for the most of the time, except a couple of less interesting moments here and there. But overall, the compositions are solid. Some spoken words and samples actually manage to lift up atmosphere, instead of ruining anything.

The lyrics are Satanic. Typical Anti-Christian vocabulary and themes are used. Once again, some of them are more or less straight from the Deicide dictionary. Thankfully there is some different lyrics too. Who could resist lines such as "transforming myself into phantom"?! Now that is METAL!

The original release and the limited one look different. I've only got the latter version's booklet, which looks nice, but isn't so easy to read, because of not so steep color differences between the ink and the paper. The bonus live tracks are of bootleg quality, so they definitely do not make it worth purchasing the album twice!

Hell-Born have managed to create a good death metal album, that rely on the past, not modernity. If riff-oriented, rolling stuff is your cup of tea, then I suggest you check out this band ASAP! One of the stronger album from Hell-Born, this one.

Rating: 7½ (out of 10) ratings explained

Reviewed by Lane
05/01/2010 19:15