Ahh, Denmark's HATESPHERE: The band that never changes. This Death-Thrash quintet has been breaking necks and spitting hate since 2001, using the exact same formula for almost 15 years, and has for the most part done so relentlessly, predictably, well. So it will come to no surprise that their 2015 effort "New Hell" is literally no different.

And since this is no different from their previous albums, I need only give you the breakdown of their sound to get you going: HATESPHERE's sound is an easy mix of AT THE GATES-esque Death Metal fury, ANTHRAX-styled Thrash, Hardcore infusion a la THE HAUNTED, with a touch of some Groove lines from, say, LAMB OF GOD, tuned down a few notches in excellence to a perfectly passable level of aggressively directed acceptance.

But before you go packing your bag, thinking you've got this album all figured out, let me just say that as far as HATESPHERE released go, this one's actually above average. It has, I think, the largest (semblance of) variety in terms of songs, which helps the album along really rather well past the few first songs, which are - predictably - the highlights of the album. I'd lie if I say I was genuinely intrigued the whole way through, especially past the halfway mark where the album reaches a relatively constant low point of uninteresting and mediocre songwriting, but at least for the first half, I was feeling the thrashin'.

However speaking of the halfway mark, these guys did actually manage to pull of a single surprise on me on just above it (before the album got lost to mediocrity): The instrumental track "On the Shores of Hell", which, by every right, could've been on an AT THE GATES or an ARCH ENEMY album in terms of style and almost in terms of excellence. So kudos for that one, it was a pleasant surprise.

So to close this one off, "New Hell" is yet another HATESPHERE release - but this time on the better side of things. It's predictable to death (bar that one track), not especially memorable, and never outright great - but at the same time it's well-executed, well-performed, and mostly well-written. So if you're a HATESPHERE fan, or really just a Death-Thrash fan that for some reason have missed out on one of the genre's core bands, then you'll love "New Hell". If you don't, then I doubt this will change your mind.

But give it a try nonetheless, because this is probably HATESPHERE at their all-time high.