Quite often I will forgo reading up on a band until I've listened to the album, this is mainly to prevent any preconceptions about them or their music. Sometimes this works nicely and I end up liking a band that I would have otherwise had a disliking for because they all wear skinny jeans and sport side-fringes tinted red.

Occasionally this has an unexpected side-effect and none other is this apparent than in the case of ROTEM. The newest offering from the band is "Nightmare Forever", an aptly titled jaunt through the varying extremities of fairly morbid subjects.

The album opens up with a bizarre intro track that has all the hallmarks of a standard atmosphere building orchestral-y piece until the drums drop in. I can only describe them as sounding like the first moments of a Dubstep build up. The snare has such a tight rasp to it that I started doubting that this was even going to be a Death Metal album, I was honestly expecting a big fat bass line to drop at any second.

Instead of any wobbly bass I was greeted with a grimy, over-distorted sound that instantly identified as none other than Death. The evil gutturals and layers of throat clenching screams confirmed this and suddenly everything felt normal again.

The aforementioned side-effect of not having read anything about the band before listening came soon after. It was maybe somewhere around the end of the first track that the drums became so ridiculously intense that I thought that it may well be none other than the T100 itself blasting the shit out of that poor kit.

It was then that I decided I should find out who this crazy mechanical drummer is and discovered that it is exactly that; a machine.

I have a lot of respect for one man bands but the only thing that saddens me is hearing them put together something that probably can't be played by a mortal. If this is a real drummer (or if someone can play it beat for beat) then I will gladly apologise for that remark and kneel before the god that they clearly are.

Musically the album is great and you can tell that Rotem has put a lot of time into crafting each song. The bass has a great tone that sounds straight out of the bowels of Hell. The guitar riffs are simple and effective, there is some odd syncopation going on in a few tracks but I think that only adds to it.

Lastly the vocals are exactly what I want to hear on an album like this, floating somewhere between angry Dovahkin and mildly perturbed Hell hound.

All in all a very well made album, I would be intrigued to see how it plays live though. If Rotem has managed to coerce one of the Elder Gods into coming to play drums for him then I will happily be a sacrifice.