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Reviewed by Darryl Kirk

Deathnir: Die By The Axe

Reviewed by Darryl Kirk

Deathnir: Die By The Axe

Old school NWOBHM (New Wave Of British Heavy Metal) outfit Deathnir get right on with kicking your teeth in. The sonic construction of this album is heavy; the subs are right down around your ankles. The vocals sit atop this with the lead spiking out above. Hailing from Hamilton Tom Meslager takes care of the drums with Andrew Carter on vocals and guitar, Adam Johnson on bass and Rey Benher dueling with Andrew on lead and rhythm guitar. As you would expect Deathnir deliver a Mashall wall of savage guitars, doom lyrics, and the thrashing drums everyone wants. Vocally Andrew has a range of styles sometimes sounding like a young James Hetfield and then as if he is channeling Glenn Danzig or Fish and backed superbly by his band mates. Like every metal band worth their riff, the song titles are brilliant; Sin, Sentence, Salvation a case in point. The title cut finds the band in full flight; double kick drums perfectly cementing the frenzy onto the crunching power of the rest of the band. Produced by the band and recorded at Howling Demon Studios (a suitably metal sounding place to record and presumably their own studio considering the track of the same name on the album) the album as a whole covers quite a bit of territory while staying true to it’s tight Iron Maiden inspired roots. The title track is a well-executed piece that surely is a crowd pleaser live, Mark of A Man starts like a Dreamtime era Cult tune only to morph into something akin to a tune off the same band’s Sonic Temple album, but with the grunt turned up somewhat. The only criticism I can level is that the liner notes are printed so tiny that you would need a microscope to decipher them. Otherwise top stuff.