Commence battle - attack!!! Invocate the occult!!! Polish death metallers Calm Hatchery unleashed their sophomore album at the end of 2010. With 'Sacrilege of Humanity', they both attack and invoke the arcane. As they are a Polish death metal band, Calm Harchery's music sounds exactly like that. There is no need to try to hide influences, if their hearts are fully involved in it. Well, you must know some renowned Polish death metal bands? If not, then it is time for you to start studying!

Calm Hatchery fluidly steer their battle tank from blasting speeds to slower parts. Double kick drumming sounds like machine gun fire, giving it all a battle field's atmosphere. Guitar playing can be very technical, close to Morbid Angel, Immolation and Mithras territories in their most warped, or Nile-esque on 'Lost in the Sands'. The band can suddenly drop all that technicality from the way of simplicity and more direct approach, even groovy, yet no metalcore. Both, the riffing and the melodic parts are catchy. They don't seem to circulate their riffs very often at all, so they have managed to keep the music fresh. The atmospheric synth-created intro and the outro, which is the intro played backwards, are the only such pieces heard here. No synths are needed to lift up the atmosphere, though. Some of the lead guitar playing, and all simultaneous levels a song might have at times, are enough to intensify the atmosphere. Many of the songs are under three minutes in length and only two are over four minutes long. However, when the songwriting is this tight, plus sometimes the songs feel intertwined, there is no need for longer individual songs. The album's actual duration is 37 minutes, when the outro and empty track number 12 are removed...

The vocals are mainly low and crispy growling, which fits perfectly into the music. The lyrical themes all circle around finding the truth behind humans. Self-examination, war, old cultures (especially Mayan) still all come down to that main theme. The lyrics are quite simple, but this way they do leave a lot of room for meditating them more thoroughly by a listener. Cover artwork is beautifully enchanting and fitting to the theme. It's the instrumentals, where the aural tricks happen. The album is meticulously recorded, yet with rawness and power, if that's even possible! Generally, the album is heavy and still well balanced soundwise, as a listener do not have to guess what's going on anywhere.

No matter if Calm Harchery carry US death influences, they still do sound so damn Polish. As their debut album 'El-Alamein' (2006) promised, Calm Hatchery are here to stay now!

Rating: 7½ (out of 10) ratings explained

Reviewed by Lane
02/17/2011 21:18