Hailing from historic Turin, Italy, the Melodic Death Metal duo of destruction DISARMONIA MUNDI have put together their fifth full-length album, "Cold Inferno." Released on May 17th, 2015, it represents a progression in their sound and stands as a mighty (albeit distant) follow-up to 2009's "The Isolation Game." With the title of one of Italy's leading Metal exports, there are some fairly lofty expectations and this album lives up to the standard and goes way beyond!

Now, granted there is a hint of KILLSWITCH ENGAGE and similar "Metalcore" bands, but Ettore and Claudio go much heavier, faster, and darker. The combination of high harsh vocals with the contrasting melodic cleans set over a blistering and perpetual guitar riff help give this comparison some credence (easily done on the first two tracks, "Creation Dirge" and "Stormghost"). The majority of each song on the album is a steady shock from the instrumentation, unrelenting and focused on pleasuring your earholes. I feel that the occasions where there were the blasts of straight Death Metal provided a welcome change in the tempo and kept me entertained with the brief changeups while never losing the tone of the individual song.

These songs are packed full of energy from both ends of the positive and negative spectrums. "Oddities from the Ravishing Chasm" maintains the thunder while giving off a positive effect in the recessed melody. The next song, "Slaves to the Illusion of Life" helps to establish a more Thrash-style rhythm (with the noticeable guitar distortion similar to "Shovelheaded Kill Machine"-era EXODUS) while still keeping with the style they established on the previous songs, adding frilly licks on guitar to accompany the base riff.

The synthesizer tracks kept me curious because, while they were used frequently, they were usually only for effect and transitional moments in the music. It did help add to the originality, so I found that to be worth a mention. I did in a big way become a fan of the drumming on this album, because the intensity never subsided and everything just seemed to mesh with the drums as the adhesive that kept the "Cold Inferno" machine firing on all cylinders.

This album is ten tracks of pure and wild Metal that took me for a ride that seemed over all too soon. As long as their next album is not another six years from this one, fans new and old will be turning their attentions to the energy that DISARMONIA MUNDI delivers!<