Paganizer
Murder Death Kill
7.6
Not knowing much about Paganizer, I assumed after the initial listen that this band had been around for quite a while judging by the heavy old-school death metal vibes festering off their latest offering, Murder Death Kill. In actuality, the band only put out its first release in 1998, and the oldest member is only 25. These guys seem to have set out to accomplish the same goal as Bloodbath (ironically enough, the album was mastered by the one and only Dan Swanö himself), and that is to create crushing, heavy, and most importantly, brutal old-school death metal. That raises the question though, have they accomplished this task? In my humbled opinion, yes. Roger Johansson heads up the axe and vokills. Once again, here come the comparisons with Bloodbath. Roger's blood curdling death growls sound very reminiscent to Mikeal Åkerfeldt’s, although Paganizer has been around just as long as Bloodbath, having releases coming out around the same time. Either way, each of them has an awesome voice, and Roger's is perfect for the death style presented on this album. Joining him on the guitars is Andreas "Dea" Carlsson. Sure the riffs aren't the most complex, but the heaviness is applied like a fifty pound barbell to the face. Combined with the drumming of Matthias Fiebig, there are some solid blast beat driven riffs with a lot of mid-paced slaughtering, and of course a few crazy solos. The production has that very rough feeling that fits the album, with the guitars having a nice tone adding to the heaviness. The vokills sound absolutely chilling and the drums work well with the music. If you dig old-school Swedish death metal sounding similar to Grave and Bloodbath, then there's not a doubt in my mind that you’ll like this album. I don't think it's quite as strong as Resurrection Through Carnage, but Murder Death Kill puts me in the mood to go for a few laps in the circle pit and slaughter a few innocents while I'm at it, and to me, that's what counts.
