Celebrating their 10th anniversary this year, Ukrainian Death-Thrashers Hell:On return with a new album entitled "Once Upon a Chaos..." releasing this August 31^st. With this being their 5^th full length, expectations are nothing short of top notch, but the band take their chances and seem to spread beyond their genre confines and experiment a lot. Has it payed off?

With just 8 songs on offer here, the album starts off with a typical heavy song instead of taking the modern 'melodic intro' route. For a first time listener of the band like me, "Filth" gives an idea of what to expect and my first impression is "Well, not bad eh"! "Filth" blasts chaotic Death Metal style song with thick screaming vocals to go by it, though the song does test your patience 4 min into it.  Reflecting the album title "Delirium" continues the chaotic sound with little variations in the riffs. "Curse of Flesh" actually is a breath of fresh air due to its double blast beats sound that it brings in amidst the thick guttural vocals, and managing to squeeze in some scintillating solos which were totally unexpected. "Self-Destruction" tries to bring in some story along with its cinematic styled outro, though it does get lost due to the lack of clarity. The album chugs along the same chaotic style with little significant variations between the songs, which are a really big letdown IMO. Even the Andreas Kisser featuring "Salvation in Death" doesn't offer anything new to the listener. The album ends with a 7 min song in "I'm God" which starts promisingly in an atmospheric sound before going back to the chaotic sound, as the band tries to bring in their old school Death Metal influences and with those long sharp solos and riffs, the chaos does sound beautiful periodically. All in all, there are very few things that work right with this album, like the amazing innovative solos and moderate production. Everything else in the album, including the drums and the guitar work, are largely unidirectional, even with the occasional story influenced studio work. A major issue I have with this album, apart from the sound itself, is that most of the songs over stay their welcome and really test your patience, simply because the songs don't have enough in them to last 5-6 minutes and still make it sound beautiful.

Overall, "Once Upon A Chaos..." may impress only a section of Death Metal fans that find beauty in chaotic sound. The album is largely saved by the solos, elsewise the band seriously need to ask themselves some tough questions.<