"The Omnicidalist" is the debut album from the Swedish death metal band, OMNICIDAL. They play an often thrash-infused, no-nonsense style of death metal. Their riffs are meaty and their vocals are violent. Their bass lines are fat and their drums are ballistic. No to mention that the album's guitar tone is sublime. Let's see if this one is worthy of the hype. The album opener, "By Knife," gets the adrenaline pumping from the get-go. The thunderous riffs are a force to be reckoned with. Svedlund's exciting vocals are growled, but legible. It is a great track and does a great job of preparing you for the album proper. I love the bulldozing intensity of being battered by music. That's what this track does.

"The Passenger" is another high point. The lyrics deal with the burden of hearing evil voices urging you to kill. The vocals are deranged screams and Svedlund's delivery is perfect for the subject matter. The hook is thick and bouncy, serving as a fitting backdrop to the lead guitar solo. This is also an excellent recording. Every instrument is easily recognized and given equal space to flourish. "Cemetery Scream" follows "The Passenger" and is a classic tale of rising zombie corpses. The breakdown after the first chorus is catchy and lots of fun. My favorite part is the lyric, "crawling up the staircase," and the intense instrumentation that follows until the track's end. With this track, they can make a tired death metal trope like "zombies" thoroughly entertaining. Four tracks in, OMNICIDAL are punching above their weight, with no signs of slowing down.

While the album's middle tracks are excellent, I'll move on down to "Narcissistic Abuse" for the sake of brevity. This track has possibly the best riffing out of every track on "The Omnicidalist." I almost always listen to music through in-ear-monitors or over-the-ear headphones so I can tell when songs do a bit of switching between the left and right channels. I'm a sucker for that stuff. This track starts with a guitar riff in the right channel before the left channel joins the fray after a few beats. The riffs are earth-shaking and this track switches things up several times in its three minutes and twenty-six seconds.

"Ten Shots" fires away with blasts of down-tuned speed metal. The chorus is catchy and the interplay between the lead and rhythm guitars is another home run. One of the best parts is Svendlund's elongated scream, followed by a death metal "blech." This track is just as much giddy fun as it is heavy-hitting. "Slow Decay" is a fitting finale for such a pummeling display. This track is slightly slower, and gave me serious vibes of "Dead Skin Mask," from SLAYER's "Seasons In The Abyss" album. The lead guitar riff is derivative of the one in the SLAYER song, but not offensively so. There's a doom metal-sounding riff that slows the song down into an eerie breakdown, shedding its SLAYER-esque trappings. My only gripe is that the vocals deepen and get overwhelmed by the surrounding accompaniment.

"The Omnicidalist" has earned OMNICIDAL a spot on my mental "bands to follow" list. There is absolutely zero filler and every track gets my blood pumping in the way that all excellent death metal music does. The riffs are golden and the lead guitar solos shred. This one is a death metal must-listen.