• 1
• 2
• 3
• 4
• 5

My kind of a band here; technical, uncompromising and just a bit sophisticated Death Metal with a lot of fresh ideas which, at times, gets close to the style and atmosphere of Death's last three or four albums.

This is French technical Death Metal act Dungortheb and, as some of you have guessed already, the name is taken from the works of J.R.R. Tolkien. Nan Dungortheb is the dreadful valley in Northern Beleriand that ran from West to East between the haunted mountains of the Ered Gorgoroth and the enchanted Northern marches of Doriath. There's your Middle Earth geography lesson.

Extracting Souls is the bands' third album and it's been six long years since the band's previous album, Waiting for Silence, which came out in 2008. As I said, Chuck & co. must have been the strongest single influence on Dungortheb as the band has many progressive, powerful, tricky and technically demanding songs on this kick-ass record and they nail all of them down flawlessly, making Extracting Souls a fine, delicious effort. The album is packed with sheer excellence. The riffs come in and rip its listeners apart, the solos are incredibly well churned out, the playing is super-tight and the interaction between each member is breathtaking. Grégory "Pass" Valentin's vocals are not a substitute for Chuck's tormented vocal lines, though I honestly think his modern death grunts fit well in the band's tight sound.

To get a clearer idea of Dungortheb's mercilessly cool sound, blend Death's Individual Thought Patters with Demigod's Let Chaos Prevail in your mind and you are close to what these French guys offer you on their latest opus. They fuckin' rule, big time.

Dungortheb's Extracting Souls is easily one of the most positive surprises of the year.