Death is June - Olkoth : "At the Eye of Chaos"

 Most death metal bands try to emulate the early David Vincent days of classic Morbid Angel. What makes this band unique is they choose to pay tribute to the Steve Tucker years. While I like "Kingdoms Disdained' even the first couple Tucker album came closer to making Morbid Angel sound like every one else. These guys have nailed the machine gun like attack while still possessing and aggressive creep of guitars that sound like the Lament Configuration opening. By the third song the click of the configuration riffing is beginning to lose it's hold on me. The throw a blitz of razor sharp riffs at your ears, but none of them cut with enough sting to make me want to go back in for another listen, 

If you read any reviews by other authors online who do not reference this Morbid Angel tribute, do not trust another word you read from them, if they are too deaf to hear it, then they do not need to be reviewing music as they can not do so objectively , or they just lie to you in order to kiss Everlasting Spew's ass, which I am not sure why that would be necessary, as they are a fairly niche label. The session drummer they hired does an excellent job on "Thousand Faced Moon". The song itself does not do much you have not already heard from these guys or Steve Tucker and friends. They go into "To Eat of the Lotus' with more atmosphere. This is something they need to lean into more as it helps them to sound like Morbid Angel less. When the get into the meat of the song there is a little more slime living there. 

The album's third act found me having to go back and give a closer listen to decipher what is going on amid the buzz of blinding fast guitars. What I found was not much different than what I heard on the front end of this album. They pump the gas harder for "Lord of the Kali Yuga" which is a lesson in faster does not make it any more interesting. The verse does find a little more groove but it is growled so rabidly that any nuance gets lost.,  Morbid Angel is one of the best death metal bands so if you are going to try to pay tribute to a death metal band as a death metal band then they are a good one to choose. Note to self do not review anymore bands trying to sound like Morbid Angel this month. I will give this album a 7 since they execute the sound they are going for well, it is however a sound I have heard before.