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Gorod is a band from from France which features most members of Gorgasm. They released their debut album Neurotripsicks last year, and it didn't impress me that much - as opposed to what most people thought, I thought it was pretty redundant and boring death metal. On the other hand, this new album, definitely puts Gorod at the top of my favourite death metal list, and it's definitely one of the best death metal albums released so far this year (without forgetting Spawn of Possession and a few others).

First things first, this isn't straightforward death metal. Like the aforementionned Spawn of Possession (whose latest album could easily be compared to this one), Gorod know how to make things interesting: Not too many blast beats, no rushed production, a lot of melody, but still keeping an undefiled sound. Some parts tend to fall more into technical grounds (such as Thirst for Power), but they never exaggerate like the successful Tasmanian band Psycroptic. Anyway, whenever one of those pretentious technical part shows up, they don't last long and there's usual a kick-ass riff right after. What makes this album so cool is that through the full 42 minutes, Gorod somehow manage to pack in every cool riff and idea that's ever been tried in death metal - without being redundant for one second. When it comes to their melodic side, I'm pretty sure I haven't heard anything Gothenburg in this album - more something in the vein of neo-classical death metal or brutal melodic death bands. There's a lot of leads and solos for those who like their Death metal with tons of 'em (the middle of 'State of Secret' comes to mind - awesome solos, a little bit of shredding and sweeping), there's some stuff for those who like some dissonant passages, some brutal-ish parts, you name it. The vocals are nothing remarkable; I get the impression that most of this album is focused on musical value. I honestly wouldn't mind at all if this had been an instrumental album.