"Unravelled By War" is the debut offering from Swedish group CREEPING FLESH. Their sound has more in common with first wave of Swedish Death Metal bands than the melodic, Gothenburg style, and brings the heaviness with their slow, riff-heavy songs.

As mentioned, none of the three songs here really ever approaches the speed limit, save for the final few seconds of the crushing title track. There are traces of groove here and there within the band's sickening, death march-like tunes, and the overall mood of the EP is very dark and despairing. While the lack of speed may bore some listeners, the precision of the instrumentation is even more important at slower speeds, and the band shows that they're more than up to the task on the nightmarish "Lashed To The Walls Of Hell," and especially "The Fate Of The Pawn." The latter track opens up with a raw, mid-paced riff that might fool first-time listeners into thinking the band might speed things up to break the monotony, even if just for a little bit, but it never happens. The percussive riffing in the second half of the song, however, is one of the album's strong points, along with the sinister lead guitar parts found throughout the other two songs and the slamming opening riff of the aforementioned title track.

Three songs isn't a lot of material to form a definitive opinion on, especially since the three on this EP are all very similar. That being said, "Unravelled By War" is still a solid first release that shows some promise for this band, who would do well to build off their menacing debut.