Die Hard

Nihilistic Vision

Agonia Records 2009

Sweden's death thrash legions return for a new album of old school thrashing.  Album opener Into the Desolate Halls of Death grinds like a saw and decimates with a Venom-esque approach of thick riffing and a near-thrash heaviness.  Die Hard ratchets up the intensity and speed on the next track, Hidden Face.  Deathly riffs are spliced together with some fiery thrashin' fretwork.  Whereas Bloody war features a classically Swedish sounding lead before down-tuned death metal riffs and a pounding beat smash into your skull like a slow motion jackhammer.  The triumphant chorus, replete with gang vocals, makes you clench your fist as you raise it in the air in the sign of the goat.  The title track dives even deeper into death metal realms with meaty, gore soaked guitars and a relentlessly pounding drums.  The song ups the ante as thrash riffing bursts upon the scene scorching ear drums everywhere and a to make a point Hasse strikes with a quick Falsetto vocal.  Up next is Fed to the Lions which might be the thrashiest song on the album with its whirlwind riffing and bouncy thrash passages and gang vocals on the chorus!  I am Possessed hits with a mixture of Swedish melodies and Slayer-esque riffs that flay the skin from your carcass.  Typically Swedish death metal slow burns on the final cut of the album, Death Chasing the Flock of Mortals.  Chunky riffs hack away for the opening passage but then it drops into a riffing section that seems to drag, not quite fulfilling the promise made by the early part of the song.  Hasse's vocals are like a tougher Cronos with the occasional screech.  I am not a big fan of the drum sound on Nihilistic Vision.  Die hard has the right attitude and the right style yet somehow the album doesn't quite hit as hard as it should, sounding a tiny bit forced.  Maybe it's the production, maybe it's the songwriting.  Can't quite be certain.  Nihilistic Vision is a solid death thrash album, nothing more.