I have reviewed both the first and second albums from Finland’s Decaying, both delivering a stout war mongering style of death metal that delivers a mix of Bolt Thrower/Hail of Bullets and Asphyx (particularity the very Van Drunen-ish is shrieks of Matias Nastolin).

And the productive Fins keep producing and getting incrementally better with each release, as the band’s third album in 3 years improves again in song writing and production, and while it was not quite one of the top death metal releases of 2014, it’s a simple, effective release of war themed death metal.

As with the last two albums, the primary tones are  mid paced somber churning barrages with a few salvo of machine gun fire. After the intro “Frequent Wind” ( which sounds eerily similar to the opening chords of Slayers “Seasond in the Abyss”) look no further than “The Fall of Saigon” to hear the heavy Bolt Thrower influence, which is also thick in the likes of the rumbling “The 38th Parallel” which shares some similar structures as …For Victory‘s title track, or “Balance of Power” and “Iron Curtain”.

But Decaying can also be a bit more urgent and pummeling has heard on “Zero Hour”, where there is much more a Asphyx feral-ness, or the title track with a nice steady,chunky trundle mixed in with the Bolt Thrower leads or  . But Decaying also can get epic too as 10 minute closer “Ho Chi Min Trail” , which takes all of the band’s influences and elements and delivers a very complete and not overdrawn track that stays interesting throughout- rare for a 10 minute death metal song, and it closes the album out perfectly.

With improved, memorable song writing and a punchy production glossing the old school hues, Decaying is proving to be a consistently solid and productive death metal band, and one that’s possibly getting overlooked in this current old school death metal revival, lets change that shall we?

[Visit the band's website]

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