Overoth
Kingdom of Shadows

The album cover of this album just yells old-school death metal like it was a town crier loudly proclaiming the end of the world as we know it, that is how it looks. The band Overoth is a band from Northern Ireland in the area around Belfast, they have been around for quite a while now. This album is a rerelease of their debut album which they self-released in 2010 but now once again see the light of day through Hostile Media. Funny thing is that on the press info for this album there is a little fairytale told about the band chaptered year for year where most years is like not much happening, this and that show and so forth. We do however learn that the band are in the finishing stages of writing new and original material for an upcoming album, that is a lot better than Jeff Lynne who is thinking about what to rerelease next. Anyway, they are said to be an uncompromising aural assault of raw aggression and death personified. Sounds very death metal.

Death metal is what it is, the old-school style which would make some reviewers do backflips because they can write many names in their reviews, some even take to writing which eras in the history of the many names they are most like. I don’t care about that because most of these bands sound the same anyway so there is no point in pinpointing which one they sound like, it is like comparing the chips in a portion of chips at some american burger franchise, pointless. They do sound a bit more modern than the basement productions of yesteryear though, and they do still remain aggressive and brutal which is what the genre is all about. And they stay true to the point as well with a short album which reaches 35 minutes on ten tracks. It all feels like a well made product.

And it is a decent listen as well, I find it entertaining enough and it does what death metal is supposed to do: offer us some aggressive brutality and evil frustration. Maybe not the assault someone was alluding to but good enough for a while of musical entertainment. Sure, there’s nothing new, nothing earth shattering but when has there ever been something like that in this genre which is looking back with teary, dreamy eyes to a world that is long gone. But romanticising over past glories is no use, this album offers a fresher perspective and an updated version of those crap productions we saw from many bands in the past, death metal has become a bit more sophisticated, and better. Overoth is a modern example that still stays true to ideals and though they are a bit boring creatively, they are good enough to entertain musically.

In the end I think that a fan of the traditionally flavoured death metal will swallow this and enjoy it a lot, to me it is good enough for a while’s entertainment but in all honesty I think it is one of those bands you like but then never bother with again.

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