Japan's SURVIVE released their seventh album, "Immortal Warriors," last year. Combining several genres of Death Metal over the course of 10 tracks, the album is quite diverse.

While the diversity is one of the album's strengths, there is one aspect of the diversity that brings the album down. This is the use of clean vocals. Clean vocals are not employed too often on the record, but the times they are, specifically on "Tears of the Victims," "Obey Your Own Army Corps" and "Wither My Dying Blood," it sounds bad. The vocals come off as whiney and unnecessary. They could have been fitting if done differently.

There are times when the clean vocals do sound good, such as the last two tracks ("Control the Darkness" and "Blood and Sacrifice").

Outside of vocal differences, what is presented otherwise is very good. There are a few Death Metal songs on here, one of which is "Degenerate." This track kicks the album off as a pounding, NILE-inspired banger with slight melodic influences. The use of dissonant chords is very pleasing, and the song boasts fantastic songwriting. The other Death Metal track is "Killing Fields," the highlight of the record. With a slow start and dissonant dabbling, the track delves into chaos quickly with little filler.

Every other track was mainly Death/Thrash Metal with Melodic Death Metal influences, with the exception of the last track which is mainly Melodic Death Metal. Of the Death/Thrash tracks, "Programmed Slaves" seemed to have the best and most memorable riffing. "Wither My Dying Blood" also had some phenomenal riffing with its epic closer. While it did exhibit some of the worst usage of clean vocals, the track pushes boundaries in the genre of Death/Thrash.

The album boils down to the previously (and rightfully) unmentioned eleventh track, a cover of METALLICA's "Master of Puppets." This album features an amazing guitar tone and Masuru "Nemo" Nemoto's growls are absolutely crushing. So, naturally, I was excited to hear these sounds on a Metallica cover. I wanted to see where they could take this song.

I was ultimately disappointed. If a band is to cover a song, I expect the cover to have the band's own sound and style in place of the original. This cover is basically an exact replica of the original from 1986. It has the same production, and it would have the same mixing if I couldn't hear the bass. Nemoto even sounds identical to James Hetfield. This may sound interesting, but I could more easily just listen to the original instead of having to listen to Survive's cover.

This album is very well-done. In fact, it's one of the better albums in the genre in recent years. Unfortunately, the album suffers from the use of terrible clean vocals and a useless cover. With good production and songwriting, it is worth anyone's time. It just has flaws large enough to bring it down.