The Swedish death metal revival keeps on rolling and FDA Rekotz has found another fine German act to go alongside Revel In Flesh to add to their roster of solid old-school death metal.
Whereas for most of this wave of retro bands, the primary influence is Entombed and/or Grave, Wound have a slightly different approach, going for a more melodic and up tempo sound akin to latter Dismember (Where iron Crosses Grow, Dismember, The God That Never Was) mixed with some slight, slicker, black metal (much higher register vocals, pacing) of Necrophobic‘s Bloodhymns. They have the requisite mid-range Sunlight guitar tone, but it’s cleaner and punchier with more slice and dice than classic heft ‘n’ buzz. They also seem to have a little more of a pure d-beat/crust influence going on here and there as well (i.e. “Forever Denial”, “Corroded From Within”). It never overrides the Swedish death metal throes, but is certainly noticeable.
After a brief instrumental intro “Odium”, Wound gets right to it with “Codex Arcanum”, a high octane, high energy romp followed by “Echoes”, a catchy track that could have come from Comecon‘s first album. “The Unsolved Obscurity” adds some nice groove into the fray before the aforementioned “Forever Denial” adds some feedback and some rollicking solos to a more d-beat based attack. “Confessed to Filth” delivers a more traditional, expected old-school Swedish death metal romp. “Corroded From Within” opens with a classic d-beat drum and bass line while “Among You” and “The Prize of Tyranny” go right back to more mid-paced, groove-laden Swedish death metal, especially the latter, huge 6-minute track which delivers a very sturdy Wolverine Blues-ish groove, and is one of the album’s standout tracks, just for the reason that it’s the most pure Stockholm sounding.
There are no real standout or classic tracks on Inhale the Void, but all of them are damn solid listens. They are not quite up there with label mate Revel in Flesh, but by the same token they are doing something a little different within the context of old-school Swedish death metal.
