Dead Man’s Hand hail from Norway, play a modern sort of European death/thrash, and The Combination is the bands debut full-length. It’s not much of a stretch to compare them to early period The Haunted, Dew-Scented or Hatesphere, but it’s probably a little too soon to be including them in that same class of ass-kicking, deathly thrash.
Opening with the just over 2 minutes “Capaci Bomb”, they lay it out there and keep trucking through the albums 10 tracks with head down and fists up. Occasionally they mix up the breakneck speeds with some mid paced groove and chunk (“The Last Stand”, and at least parts of nearly every song) or some melody (“Hostile Respect”, “Castigate”, “Knuckledusted”) that strongly recalls The Haunted.
Dead Man’s Hand are not a bad band – their powers of emulation are kinda impressive on “Bloodstained Hands” and the title track (Hatesphere), “Castigate”, “Guillotine” (The Haunted) – but it’s going to take more than some simple copy and paste tactics to stand out from the crowd and turn a few heads, especially in their genre. For what it’s worth though, they’re a fairly enjoyable listen if you like the aforementioned bands.
“The Last Stand” is a pretty fuckin study track, been spinning it alot. not so much the rest of the album
on Jan 5th, 2010 at 10:15Yeah, the album has it’s moments, that track being one particular standout. Not bad, not great. I’m interested to see where they go from here.
on Jan 5th, 2010 at 20:09