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Ah, Poland, land of hatred and despair. I know I'm generalizing, but seriously, can you name any happy, flowery bands from this country? Poland breeds angry, evil Death and Black Metal bands like a rotten corpse breeds maggots. Hell-Born are no exception, as they fall well into a continuum between Behemoth and Destroyer 666.

Okay, I know D666 are not Polish, but they are the closest analog to Hell-Born's sound – the shreddingly fast riffs layered over half-time drumwork is almost signature, add the raspy vocals, Satanic themes, and a lot of bulletbelts and you have it down. Some may find the comparison to a band as fine as D666 a bit much, but on this disc Hell-Born are within a hair as good as masterworks like "Unchain The Wolves". On later albums this band got more generically Black/Death and lost some of their edge, but on this kvlt first release they are all blistering aggression and raw power. They don't lose their riffs in the snare drum, and they don't forget that their music is supposed to make you want to kill. The production is solid on the first six tracks (five actually, with the intro), from "Inverted" the songs are all from the eponymous EP from 1996, and they are their own kind of fun, being even more raw and evil-sounding, with riffs every bit as good as the newer ones.

This is just a great slab of Blackened Death Metal mayhem. If you love loud, violent, raw music packed with killer riffs and delicious Satan references in every bite, then Hell-Born's debut is just the thing for you.