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Artist: Branded Skin Track(s): "Killing Machine", "Demonic Voices", "Shadows Of Fear", "Deadly Nightmare" and "Against The Unknown" (clip) Reviewed by: Lou
I'm not entirely sure about how I found Branded Skin. It might have been the result of some great adventure involving dragons and knights... But, somehow I think it was due to travelling through a maze of 'Links' pages until I found something that caught my attention. Oddly enough, it was the band's logo that caught my eye... because I didn't really like it. Still, I pushed that aside and had a listen to the MP3s anyway (I thought I'd better... I mean, I was there anyway!). The first track I heard was the only one from Branded Skin's debut CD and it was called "Killing Machine". Perhaps unfairly, I wasn't expecting too much. The production wasn't great, but that just may be the computer that I'm using at the moment. Anyway... "Killing Machine" surprised me! It has a great groove and the vocals aren't too disimilar to those of John Tardy (Obituary) - which, of course, goes down very well with me. The only problem with I have with the song (and in fact with most of the songs here) is that it remains at (almost) the same pace for it's entirety. This does, however, make it very easy to headbang to... and Lou likes to headbang. Lots. "Demonic Voices" was the next track that I listened to. This song is taken from Branded Skin's "Shadows Of Fear" album and it features somebody called M. van Drunen (I have no idea who that is, but hey!). While the song does have a good guitar riff, it is my least favourite of this selection. I can't really put my finger on why, but it just doesn't do a lot for me. 
Luckily, my faith in Branded
Skin was restored with "Shadows Of Fear" - the title track from
their album. It has a nice intro and the guitar is great on this track.
The vocals also seem slightly more aggressive this time around. One of the
things that I love about "Shadows Of Fear" is the 'stomping' feel
to the ending. Brilliant! "Deadly Nightmare" is another track from the "Shadows Of Fear" album and is another song with a fantastic groove. I can just imagine myself dancing/headbanging along to this at a gig or something somewhere. The final track I listened to was a short clip (1.05 mins worth) of a new Branded Skin song called "Against The Unknown". As with all clips, it's difficult to gauge what it's like from such a small burst. It does sound promising though. Branded Skin seem to hail from the old school of Death Metal. They would not sound strange next to giants such as (the aforementioned) Obituary. If you like this style of metal then Branded Skin are definitely worth checking out. Date added: 04/01/06 |
