WARMBLOOD is an Italian Death metal trio from the Lombardi region of Italy. They released a demo in 2003 and in 2006, bass player Ivan Marconi decided not to continue with the band. The band then made a decision to continue as a trio and in 2008 released their first full length offering Necrocosmos Destination. They followed that up with two more releases in 2010 and 2014 before departing with vocalist Marco Lari in 2014. Fast-forwarding into 2017, they release the album Putrefaction Emphasis and as the reviews came in, they really seemed to be getting better with each album. We now enter 2022 and we have Master of the Dead, as they hope to continue the growing trend.

The album starts off with the track "Ritual of Petrification" as a highly melodic guitar track before becoming a crunchy riff driven demon with solid drumming turning the pace into a more frantic form of aggression and vice versa. The duo of guitars work well together forming a wall of heavy rhythm and melodic tendencies. The next track starts off a five piece formation of tracks with "Master of the Dead Pt.1 1813". This song takes on a Progressive Death metal sound with a heavier edge and a more advanced pace with some trippy guitar notes to open the track up. "Master of the Dead Pt. 2 Season of Death" comes into formation with a more punk meets metal opening riff before transforming into a pedal to the Death metal track. Giancarlo's vocals match the pace and inherit the aggression of the guitars until completion. "Master of the Dead Pt. 3 Morbid Anatomy" begins as a heavily melodic metal track and the guitars carry it the entire way through.

"Master of the Dead Pt. 4 Ante Novam Lucem" comes off with a nice relaxed guitar entry and then once again enters into the melodic form that seems to embody these continuous tracks as it is minus the vocals. Of all these parts this one seems to take the cake for me with the variations of off tempo timing as well as how the musical pieces follow each other very well. With the track "Putrefaction Idiosyncrasy" the guitars do a great job of placing melody and rhythm on top of each other and even playing the role of the absent heavy vibrating four strings. This track is the banger the album has been looking for. The album ends with "Crematorium" and as the vocals of Giancarlo take on a Death metal essence, the track is heavily melodic. The guitars do a good job of stacking the riff's to come across with a more heavy influence, but the album to me is more of a melodic metal album then death metal.

The production is there and as a whole sounds very good. Maybe the absence of the bass for me takes away from the driving and almost numbing rumbling of the music that Death metal entitles. The duo guitars carry their own throughout as they stack melody upon riffs and compliment them with fast paced driven drums.