I remember the first time I heard of KOMMANDANT.  It was in a conversation a few years ago when I heard about the "Iron Hands on Scandinavia" demo that later integrated the "Purity Through Fire" compilation in 2015. I remember during the following years to have listened briefly to some excerpts from "The Draconian Archetype" and after "The Architects of Extermination", but I confess that having an American band variant between Black / Death and Thrash with this connotation of the Scandinavian scenario did not arouse a lot of interest at the time.  In fact, I always preferred bands to gain their own characteristics, but this is an old affair, and after all they really found the master key for their own world.

Between some news inside the American scene and details about the shows that were always narrators with a certain astonishment by who was not a recurring fan of the band, I was kept a little absent of what these guys could do in the future.  Always seen as ready for war when they are on stage the band now brings their new work to daylight, or would say, on the edge of the cliff, we are talking about "Blood Eel" released on September 1, 2018 by Aeternitas Tenebrarum Musicae Fundamentum.

If I had some complaints about the band before, some of them remain now, especially about the formation of the band, always hearing a lack of information about it.  Between masks and shadows, this has always become difficult.  Now it is possible to better understand the dynamics of these musicians.  Of course, I remember the name of Jim Bresnahan and at times of Patrick McCormick, but I never know exactly who left or stayed in this band that say "had a certain amount of changes in the lineup".  Added to this is the lack of general information, a little regrettable at least what we have at the moment.  Maybe this technique worked in the past as a way to get attention, but currently I keep repeating that it only makes things difficult. Let's talk about the album, the most important task

As I already imagined "Blood Eel" is a chaotic album and if on the one hand I keep my complaints about the lack of information about the musicians on the other I admit that the concept generated by the band about "We have met the enemy, and he is us" remains very interesting, the whole atmosphere generated to demonstrate almost theatrically the problems of the country of origin remind us of a reality seen in a very unique way by these musicians, considered as one of the architects for this new landscape of the style, where the Americans are beginning to feel that their country is far from being the democratic perfection that many have believed in the past, something in counter-culture that has been added to the extreme side of Metal in a really clever way.   Just look closely at tracks like "The Struggle" and "Cimmerian Thrust" and you will easily understand the bandwagon that the band refers to.  All this rationally explains the context the band absorbed and puts them in focus now by turning "Blood Eel" into an ingenious work of musicians who know how to pursue their own identity.

This is 48:38 minutes of a singular and apotheosis sound destruction that will crush your concepts and keep you curious about each new step of these musicians.  Despite being a really short album with only seven tracks, it is self-complete for the duration of time, with highlights such as "Aeon Generator" and "Moon ... The Last Man", the latter with slightly differentiated dynamics in front of the others but still sounding like the whole album in a massive block.