Metal!

It's always good to hear something that I can only describe with that one word, no sub-genres, no pigeon holes and certainly no usage of the word 'post'!  TOMBSTONE are just that kind of band, some may want to inexcusably throw the word 'core' after the metal part but fuck them, Metalcore doesn't exist.

Now that I've managed to annoy half of the people reading this I'll continue.

Germany has had many up and downs over the last few decades.  On one hand they were  responsible for possibly one of the most influential bands of all time KRAFTWERK and changed the face of music forever.  On quite the other, they also brought us TOKIO HOTEL and SCOOTER.  So there is substantial evidence that you cannot set expectations on a countries musical output based on their track record.  So with the bitter memory of "The Whistle Song" still ringing in my ears, I engorged myself on the better side of modern German music.

TOMBSTONE are an extremely tight five piece from Ruhr.  I have no idea where Ruhr is but they describe themselves as being the embodiment of the miners that gave the area the strong image it has today.  They seem to purvey a sense of the working class struggle that is faced in many areas of the world where physical labour is king.  Despite my little rant at the beginning of this, they describe themselves as a mixture of Melodic, Groove and Death Metals and I guess this can be heard if you really strain.   What really comes through though is gritty, balls to the wall Metal that sounds like it could have been mined straight from the core of the land with a pickaxe forged from solid iron and wielded with the kind of old, calloused hand that has never known a day's rest.

The album opens with "Injected", a song that sounds eerily like it could have been borne of some sordid love affair between ARCH ENEMY and SLIPKNOT.  The guitars are chuggy, the vocals are raw and delivered at that sweet spot of tone that sounds similar to flesh being torn from a face.  With brilliantly tight drums and bass thrown into the mix, this is one album opener that sets a perfect president for the next forty minutes and announces "If you don't enjoy this then you may want to go back to TOKIO HOTEL".  The album does twitch around with slightly different influences creeping their way in and I was more than a little shocked when "Binary Snow Globe" started playing to hear a classically Blues based riff pushing into something that resembled Black Metal.  They carry it off very well though and don't seem to make a big deal about switching up a song, they just kind of forget what they are writing and wander off into another field before realising that they much preferred the previous one as it had more stuff to stamp on.

If this is their debut release, I am looking forward to hearing what these guys can do wit a few more years of experience.  Hopefully they will make it over here to the UK and beat some sense into our stagnant Metal scene with a large European stick.