War, Death, Hate. Typical concepts for numerous renowned Death Metal bands like Obituary and Bolt Thrower. Germany was never famous for Death Metal acts, though the band we will talk about tries to change that.
My Darkest Hate with their third album named At War, dedicate 40 minutes of endless mind pounding to War and everything about War. God of War should be proud with that much praising. Or not?
Describing this album was a task that I never thought it could be that hard. I can't really tell if I liked At War or if I hated it. I really do know that it caught my attention, sometimes in a positive and sometimes in a negative way. MDH's sound hasn't changed since their previous album To Whom It May Concern. Mid tempo songs, down-tuned guitars, hard but rhythmical drums, really something to headbang to.  Listening to songs like Catch The Bullet or I Will Follow, one can realize that these are pure trademarks of MDH's sound.
Though musically At War is descent you can hardly remember a song after lots of listening and some good riffs in this album are going to waste because of the mediocre songwriting, not to mention the small duration of the songs with an average running time being around 3 minutes. MDH are playing a way too technical Death Metal to be releasing like those on At War and they should invest more on songwriting and those great riffs composed by Jörg M. Knittel and Oliver Großhans.  The rhythmic section, meaning drums and bass, is way too repetitive and sometimes reaches the level of boredom since you can hardly tell if they've changed a tune.
Concluding My Darkest Hate's At War is not the album that will hold you long enough to love it. It's got some hidden good moments but the rest average results really doom those moments. One thing is for sure, My Darkest Hate is a big local Death Metal band in Germany but if they want to exceed those boundaries they need to work a lot more on the good elements they showed on At War.