Hail Of Bullets "…Of Frost And War" Cassette

Floga Records 2020 Pro-tape edition limited to 300 copies

Death Metal from the Netherlands. The album is a free form concept about the German / Soviet war from 1941-1945, so called German Operation Barbarossa and Reciprocal Soviet Offensive after Stalingrad.

Theo van Eekelen - Bass
Ed Warby - Drums
Paul Baayens - Guitars
Stephan Gebédi - Guitars
Martin van Drunen - Vocals, Lyrics

Guest/Session:
Dan Swanö - Vocals (additional) (track 2)

This album is like being run over with a panzer tank and having your corpse shit on by a couple of SS officers armed with Flammenwerfer 35's afterward. At it's most basic, what we have here is a combination of old school death metal combined with some very tastefully inserted doom sensibilities. If I had to come up with a list of names to give you a good idea, think of the best aspects of Grave, Asphyx, and Scream Bloody Gore era Death thrown into a blender. The production of this album is pretty superb, sporting an ABSOLUTELY MASSIVE sound, especially the guitars which sound less like distorted guitars and more like tank shells and machine gun fire destroying everything in their wake. The bass is massive and the drums are produced just right, up front in the mix enough with just enough breathing room but not overwhelming. To seal the deal we have Martin Van Drunen from Pestilence on vocals, which fits the music perfectly as he has just the right amount of Rabies and control for the job.
There is thrashing on this album, grooving, droning, you pretty much got it all within a very nice old school package that still manages to sound relevant. The songwriting present here is smart, having just enough order to sound organized but bringing in just the right amount of surprises to hit you where it hurts, some things you don't see coming at all like the thrashing break in "General Winter". If you had to ask me what I figured the best songs on here would be, try "Before The Storm (Barbarossa)/Ordered Eastward", "General Winter", "Advancing Once More", and "Stalingrad".
This is ABSOLUTELY ESSENTIAL! The proficiency and perfect measure this album is carried out with is pretty rare in this day and age.

Sample: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...