Forty Winters : "Rotting Empire"

This band has a very straight forward metal sound that combines touches of hardcore groove with the aggression of death metal. This might be what is referred to as death core, but the guitar sound sounds more like Entombed rather than the over produced sound most of the so called death core bands tend to have. I am on the fourth song before I know it. So there is not much variation in what these guys do instead they opt to keep their attack very concise. They are some catchy accents pounded into "Empty Tombs" , but when the tempo picks up into a break neck speed then the songs become one brutal blur until a break down like riff helps to provide enough variation to decipher it. The punk in hard-core is felt in the very straight forward pounding of 'Human Sacrifice" they even get a little blasty, but to the band's credit I don't hear them straying into anything blackened , they begin to remind me a little of Ringworm in places.


The drummer is a crazy speed demon and the band is impressive to keep up with him, yet the barked anger of the vocals keeps things colored in a monochrome blood red. By "Looming Serpent" you already have a good understanding of just how angry these guys are, they go into a more guttural death metal that is more along the lines of what modern death core or metal or what ever kind of core you want to call it sounds like. I never fully understand where death metal purists draw the line to decide not to like something like this. If your are on a steady diet of Morbid Angel and Incantation, then I under stand, but when you start getting into bands like Suffocation the lines get a little blurry and it more of the drill Sargent like accents that are separating this from just being death metal. Though if this album came out in the 90s it might have been labelled death metal.  "Disease of Time" has more groove to it. You know the rule around here is cool riffs alone do not make a good song, songs like "Disease of Time" certainly offer up a good challenge to that.

I'll give this album a 6 as this is too straight up in your face with little in the way of atmosphere or melody to truly appeal to me. In some ways if this had come out when I was a teenager I might have been more impressed , but as it stands I have heard this all done before, yet I am giving this a six because they did what this album set out to do. It is very thick and heavy. If heavy is all you need and you like a hearty helping of death metal with your hard-core then these guys are going to be worth your time.