Review of Mr. Death - Detached From Life

After initially turning up my nose at a band named Mr. Death, I somehow got to be ok with the moniker, which may have had something to do with the cool faux VHS movie cover for Detached from Life. The old school, primarily Swedish style, death metal performed on the disc is pretty decent too, if not especially memorable.

The group membership comes with an impressive pedigree (Tiamat, Expulsion, and Treblinka) and the recording comes from none other than Tomas Skosberg at Sunlight Studio, so you know that the talent is there and the sound is mean. While old school Swedish death metal is not an inaccurate description it is not an exact replica of the motoring/buzzing sound that acts like Nihilist and Entombed had on the early recordings either. Detached from Life is bone dry and punishing, just not as gnarly and knotted as the old stuff. I’m probably splitting hairs though.

The songwriting is of the straight forward variety, typically up-tempo and occasionally down-tempo (e.g. the rumbling tank division sound of “Combined Anatomy,” which ultimately speeds up toward the end). The riffs are more than workable and while the arrangements are never over the top or even out of the ordinary, several work fairly well (e.g. “Evil Undisputed,” “A Dying God,” “Muse of Chaos”). It seems that the band is most comfortable when going for the throat in no-frills fashion, as is the case on “Suffer” and the speedy rolling death of “Death vs. The Living Dead.” Jocke Lindstrom’s growls are hoarser than I prefer, but are not necessarily problematic. In the end, what Detached from Life may lack in staying power, it makes up for in old school spirit and aggression. That’ll be good enough for most.