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Battalion: Winter Campaign
Battalion - Winter Campaign - [Shiver Records]

2007-04-03

It took me a few minutes from it finally dawned on me, these Belgian death merchants reminded me of their veteran British counterparts – Bolt Thrower! The same obsession with war-related lyrics, the same oldschool, mid-paced death metal, it's all there! It's a good thing these guys have enough of a writing ability and solid aggression to make this rather enjoyable album stand on its own.

From the opener "Bombenkreig" it's clear where thing are going; mid-paced death metal with not a melodic riff in sight, this is purely aggressive and brutal, not too complex and not overly brutal, but still catchy and easy to enjoy. The vocals are of the deep growled kind, with a strong rhythmic sense which gives the music an added energy.

"Warfiend" has on of the best riffs in here, and though the song doesn’t use too much diversity, it's still simple aggressive fun. One thing that separates these guys from Bolt Thrower is that their lyrics seem to dwell much more on the European world wars than Bolt Thrower's overall fascination with war, it does bring a bit more of a focused theme to the content.

One of my favorite bits is the title track- strong opening riff, and a great, machine-gun like delivery by the vocalist, this is death metal with quite a lot of groove that you don't usually find in such offerings.

To sum it up, this isn’t the most original of albums, but any oldschool death metal fan will have a field day here. Simple, aggressive and well written, this is a great example of the way this genre should be done.

Alon Miasnikov



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