There are many bands that use a set of influences to set their things and create music, instead of using them just as a referential frame and do things on their own. This can explain why many acts today prefer to stay on their comfort zones and stay away from looking for something new, fresh and personal. But there are those courageous ones who try things in a different form, even not leaving a genre’s frontiers, and the German quintet SCALPTURE is one of them, as “Landkrieg” states it clearly.

Marco Brinkmann (recordings, mixing) and Lawrence Mackrory (mastering) worked in a way that reinforces the unusuality of the band: even the sonority being into a Death Metal model, it seems to look for something that can balance the aggressiveness and distortion with a very good level of definition (what gives the idea of being ‘clean’), or in other words, the band wants to be understood. And the excellent artwork of Eliran Kantor for the cover (it seems a new vision into Cain and Abel history) is different for a release of such genre due the colors used.

Musically, one person could think that the quintet follows a traditional Death Metal way similar to Swedish Death Metal School (due the approach of the vocals), but as soon as things are heard, one can trace melodies arising and defining ways into the band’s music. It’s aggressive and brutal, indeed, but some unexpected elements can be heard her and there. And the energy unleashed is truly amazing, but one feature that can be felt is that the quintet works in a honest way, using their own influences to breed music.

After the instrumental intro “The Fall...”, the album becomes a massive Death Metal attack that will astonish many fans, and will earn the quintet many new ones, because “Into Catastrophe”, “Til jeret undergang”, “Landsknecht”, “Wallenstein”, “Den mörka nattens lejon”, “Of Siege and Besieged”, “Schwedentrunk”, “Hell’s Choirs Chant” and “Bellum se ipsum alet” offer the hearers a different approach into the genre, but without leaving its limits.

Taste “Landkrieg”, and become addicted to SCALPTURE’s music. It’s goodyou’re your health, indeed.