SERPENT-Art of War

I am astounded by the high quality of this CD, and I strongly recommend it to all the Death Metal consumers, if they are looking for something that is both new and classic as far as this style is concerned. Although the CD wants to be dedicated to war as a phenomenon, I find it quite convincing.....

A voice that proves to be powerful and resistant, going well with the fast furious guitars, and the result deserves a second listen, and more........ Aggressivity and guts, combined with real musical talent, that is what this album is all about, and it's a lot beyond the usual quality of a first release. The guitars are tight, fast and mean, with an intro that sure as hell is interesting- one of those army marchs the way they used to be in WW II- March or Die, continues with the fast furious "Art of War" that does have an interesting guitar attack combined with fast and aggressive drumming. Panzer appears to be a littlke more mellodic in the beginning, but it's just an impression, with well done rhythm breaks and a bassline as low as it gets. The Apostle has longer riffs, but all it's teh same high quality death metal as teh rest of teh album, combined with faster and more aggressive passages, fast and mean, yet quite ellaborate=- a very nice combination, that alsdo sees a female voice in the background, together with the best guitar solo on the CD. behind the Cross ends this very well done CD in a majestic manner, and complicated rhythms do not have any secrets for these guys. This one has a small doom metal influence as the vocal line is slower than usual, but the result is by all means spectacular, and this si teh song that really shows off the qualities of the drummer, that adds up to teh rest of this already very tight overall effect. all in all, a CD that would get an 8.5/10 in my book- and the only flaw that can be mentioned is that it's not recorded very loud- but this is the only bad thing to be said about it

By Simona- september 6th, 2002