ECOCIDE is an old-school styled Death Metal band from Haarlem, North Holland, who got their start as the band TOXIC NAPALM in 2010 but then changed name (and style, I'm told) to their current one in 2012 and released a self-titled demo, followed by this debut album, "Eye of Wicked Sight".

And when I say old-school Death Metal I bloody mean it, because if I didn't know better I could've easily placed these guys back in the late 80's and early 90's when Death Metal broke out. The only thing that gives it away is the clean production quality, which is a noticeable nudge over the old Death Metal classics. Musically the ECOCIDE trio displays throughout the course of the album an impressive range of influences and styles while retaining a rock-solid old-school Death Metal sound. Fans of early-era DEATH, MORBID ANGEL and IMMOLATION will feel right at home on "Eye of Wicked Sight", and the geeks abound will surely rejoice to learn that this is a 120% Sci-Fi and Horror-inspired album.

And as soon as the album starts there can be no question of those Sci-Fi-inspirations as the 1 minute instrument opening track "Multiverse" brings in a spacey and quirky soundtrack that really creeps in under your skin. The album then kicks off and goes into old-school Death Metal overdrive with the first song "Planet Eater", and never stops from there. Each song has its own flair and style, and the album rips on confidently from beginning to end with refreshing coherence and focus, never straying far from those old-school Death Metal roots even though they play occasionally with Melodic, Technical and Progressive elements.

Fans of old-school Death Metal should not - I repeat, should not - let this one pass you by because it's probably among the best of its kind to come out in several years, for it is truly an old-school Death Metal album through-and-through. And that's both good and bad for ECOCIDE, because in one hand they're playing in established territory to an audience that knows what they want - and ECOCIDE sure does too - but in the other they can't really bring anything to the table that  there's isn't a tonne more and a tonne better of already. It probably won't change anyone's mind about old-school Death Metal, and it doesn't expand on anything we haven't seen before, but that haven't stopped a legion of other bands from doing the same before for years and "Eye of Wicked Sight" is a distinct level higher than its peers, making for a cookie crunchy piece of unapologetic Death Metal that you simply can't go wrong with!