Hail Of Bullets - III: The Rommel Chronicles

Hail Of Bullets should be known to rather a fair few of you by now, this is their third full release that lyrically concentrates of the military life, rise and fall of one field marshal Erwin Rommel. History had a great reputation for military strategy and Martin Van Drunen manages to portray his interpretation of his life in ten brutal tracks. Some like ‘Swoop of the Falcon’ and ‘DG-7’ are very much in your face whilst the relatively lesser amount of slower tracks such as ‘DAK’ pulverize your hi fi system in the style that this band know best.

The mixing and mastering was handled by industry stalwart Dan Swanö which is pretty damn good however, I am getting a little tired of the same drum sound from album to album when this guy is working with bands. That said, there is nothing wrong here, it’s just a similarity I have heard a lot of this year. Destroying your rib cage and relationship with your neighbours is the track ‘Tobruk’ and one cannot discard anything like ‘The Final Front’ which has some perfect lead breaks and general guitar work. The artwork is very much fitting for the albums theme but Hail Of Bullets don’t let this album become a typical concept album, each track has its own merit, a sense of individuality leading to a nice flow to the album.

Hail Of Bullets don’t release sub-standard music, with more touring planned for next year this is a great set of tracks to take on the road. ‘III: The Rommel Chronicles’ is another slab of pure death metal Armageddon that is like a panzer division running through your head.