Brazil’s Nervochaos come charging out of the gates on their 5th album of old school , chunky death metal; “Mark of the Beast” thunders along with a killer death metal romp, as does second track track “Sheep Among Wolves”,  and third track “Your World’s Trend”, where the pace starts to sound a bit too similar, but as you brace for an entire album of steady, simple, Jungle Rot paced, solid death metal, the rest of the album really stutters and ultimately bores.

It starts to go wrong somewhere in “Your World’s Trend” with some strange gang changes amid the otherwise chugg-tastic track. Then the album seems to be stuck on repeat as the rest of the albums 13 tracks and overly long 42 minute run time loses steam and creativity. Which is a shame as the beefy guitar tone and first few songs did enough to get my neck snapping pretty hard. I have not heard any of the bands previous efforts, so I don’t know if the style has stayed the sames since the bands 1998 debut, but today in 2013, even with the huge retro death metal movement, the band sounds a bit dated.

Don’t get me wrong, I love old school and simple death metal, but there’s just something lacking here, even with a considerable  thrash backbone.  Still, bands like Skeletal Remains, Humiliation, Chapel of Disease and Deus Otiosus have dusted of the likes of old Death and Possessed  and Bolt Thrower-but made it far more creative and enjoyable. To the Death isn’t a bad album, far from it, it’s just a bit bland. Even Jungle Rot, Grave and Six Feet Under, three viable comparisons, seem to have invigorated themselves with their last efforts, making Nervochaos sound even more dated.

But its not for lack of trying, occasional moments of enjoyment surface amid the otherwise standard tracks, like the mid song gallops in “Hate”  and “Smoking Mortal Remains” (they are pretty good as these classic canters-I’ll give them that,  even if they do run them into the ground, it’s when they do other stuff it gets dreary),   and the vocalist certainly gives it his all with his old school Mark Grewe/Dave Matrise-ish rasp and growl. But ultimately, To the Death, just isn’t much more than a nostalgic dusty release that does not do their peers a whole lot of justice despite the production and best intentions. But you’ve got to credit their staying power and consistency, so best of luck to them in the future as I’m sure they’ll keep cranking out this type of mediocre, mildly entertaining, old school death/thrash metal.

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