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Sometimes you just want some good old Death Metal, no frills, no clean vocals, no trendiness or Black Metal touches. Just Death, pure and brutal. It that's the kind of mood you are in, then you want to have this CD close to hand. Trauma are a Polish band who have actually been around since 1986, and this is their fourth studio album, and it kills.

These days a band that just plays Death Metal straight up with no gimmicks looks almost innovative. Trauma don't follow any trends and they don't try and do anything new or different, they just play heavy and they play mean. They have good riffs and a strong growler who isn't too guttural, so you can understand the lyrics. They don't adhere slavishly to one particular school of Death either. There's a little scale-built riffing a la Krisiun, a bit of atonal, stop-time structures like Morbid Angel use when they're really stoned, and quite a bit of Entombed-ey crunch. So you get an across-the-board slice of pretty much all the good stuff about each different style of Death Metal, with nary a wink of that wankery Gothenburg crap. This is old-school fellas.

So despite a name that made me yawn just looking at it, Trauma have cranked out a first-rate album of solidly built Death Metal. There is no innovation at all on this disc, and that's not a complaint, it's a comfort. You will not be subjected to any orchestral noodling, and not even one second of clean vocals. This is a solid enjoyable album, and if you love Death Metal, then this will sate your appetite for it very well indeed. Recommended.