The early days of death metal saw the origins of three major scenes: New York style death metal from the likes of Suffocation and Immolation, Florida death metal from Death and Morbid Angel, and Swedish death metal from Entombed and Grave, among many others. Death metal spread quickly though and bands were popping up in many unusual places, places like Norway which was more famous for black metal, Poland, Brazil, and many other countries. Even the U.K., which was at the forefront of the metal scene for a few decades started seeing death metal bands pop up.The U.K.'s death metal scene mostly developed out of grindcore. Bands like Napalm Death, Carcass, and Bolt Thrower were all originally grindcore bands that progressively became more death metal-oriented. Benediction was another of these bands, though less well-known. They are easily one of the heaviest death metal bands from that time period, with a very deep and bass-heavy sound and some powerful low roars from vocalist Dave Ingram, who also did some time in Bolt Thrower.
This album basically came out of nowhere. It is incredibly heavy and surprisingly fast. It quickly became one of my favorite death metal albums. It is very underrated. Benediction has not been quite the same since Ingram has been gone. They are still an enjoyable enough band, but the vocals are not as impressive.
So, why did I pick this up? Because of the awesome cover. Sometimes that does work out.
I'm going to agree with you on the album cover thing, on both points. First, that album cover is awesome. Second, sometimes that works out. More about that later this week.
ReplyDeleteThe only Benediction album I have is The Grand Leveller, but at some point I think I'll need to pick up more.
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