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Death Metal troops from the murky lands of Finland, Wrathrone, have been at it since 2008 and have kept an almost a stable line-up through those 10 years, only changing one of their guitarists once. During that time, they also released a couple of studio albums. Their debut, Born Beneath, came out on Inverse Records in 2016, and its follow-up, Reflections of Torment, was released at the end of April 2018 as a cooperation between Russian extreme underground Metal label Satanath Records and Italian The Void Records.

This is some of the most rotten, murkiest and most pleasantly and idea-rich Death Metal that I have had a pleasure to hear in quite a while. Sure, the band knows how you churn out your typical, dead limb-heavy and utterly dark Death Metal, often in pretty fast tempos, but they also understand what it means to take a little distance from the masses when it comes down to creating more your own sound. There's an increased amount of melodies squeezed into their songs that add a couple of spoonfuls of extra twists. What's also pretty noticeable is that the songs are structured in a similar way to that of British legends Bolt Thrower (R.I.P), with this ominous and dangerous, and sort of calm-before-a-full-scale-attack feel. In fact, "Bloodshroud" is nearly 100% Bolt Thrower worship, whereas "Last Journey North" introduces a more Black Metal-ish sound. It's nice to mix ketchup with a black mustard every once in a while, as after that everything tastes much better, right?