Axis Powers – Marching Towards Destruction
With 3 members of Suicidal Winds in tow, I guess you could call Axis Powers a side project, obsessed with the crusty old death metal spirit of their Swedish homeland possessing their souls. “Marching Towards Destruction” is a mammoth sounding wedge of simplistic, but very effective death, bloated by low tuning and a buzz sawing guitar tone that’ll make the Entombed and Dismember camps pat themselves on the back once again for creating sickened perfection when it comes to THE classic death sound. Mid-ranged guttural vocals lead the charge for “Marching Towards Destruction” to enter the arena, while the unfaltering, no frills songwriting style is so completely solid, the punishing attack of this material easily devours the lions in said arena with conviction and a ravenous bite. The bass is ruptured in distortion and fills in the bottom end, for moshless rhythms and blastless speed to further cement death metal’s mid 90’s reanimated corpse firmly under the microscope where its spirit can live on and be in the public eye once again. The technicality and “turbo” perplexities of the modern death movement are thankfully taking a back seat to the real, evil, and far more powerful forefather of the genre. The turbo stuff had/has its place I suppose, but greatly lacks the feeling and overall human side of this beast. Old death doesn’t need the flash and speed which the modern side uses a crutch. This forces bands like Axis Powers to borrow from the older days in sound and style, BUT they have to write more memorable and meaningful songs to compensate for the annoying scales and hyperspeed regurgitation of sonic math problems. I’ll take real songs over calculus any day. “Marching…” is a welcomed addition to my collection indeed. –Marty
Pulverised Records
Worm Gear 