Find the coverage and some great photos of this year's Devilstone Open Air written by our Lithuanian contributor Inga here>> www
Death metal is such a limitless genre. You can do whatever you'd like. It can be over the top technical or slow. Brutal or insane and it's all so good. When we made "Visions of Death" it just came out with a natural old school-ish vibe and that's great, but our newer material has a much more modern technical vibe. I love how death metal has evolved.
For me, death metal should be heavy as fuck, brutal (which doesn't necessarily mean "fast"), atmospheric and evil. If the "evil" thing is not there, you can't label yourself death metal, that's a fact. I'm so fucking close minded when it comes to metal music... I listen to the SAME hard rock, heavy, thrash, doom, death and black metal that I used to listen to 15 years ago.
On their second album Dutch death metallers Vermin combine chunky death metal (pre-"Vile" era Cannibal Corpse) with technical segments that remind of Meshuggah and blasting sections that remind of high speed death metal groups as Hate Eternal and Krisiun. Compared to their debut "Define : Divine" is far more fluent sounding with better song structures and less of a chaotic feel overall. The screaming leads are integrated better in the material and vocalist Laurens is better compared to his predecessor. The rhythms used aren't strictly death metal as some of them wouldn't feel out of place on a Pantera record. Most of the material is bouncy and out-of-control sounding but due to Vermin's excellent instrumental mastery and a wonderful production it never becomes an incoherent mess. "Define : Divine" is mostly a self-produced and recorded affair with only the drums being recorded at Excess Studios, Rotterdam and it is great to hear a self-recorded album that can compete with any of the major studios. The artwork, design and lay-out are good but not as eye-catching as some of the earlier Deity Down Records releases. Still, Vermin have delivered another stellar forward thinking death metal album that few of their peers will be able to match or surpass.http://www.deitydownrecords.comcomment itWouter 7
