Southwicked is a multinational death metal act that features some Belgian dudes from obscure bands like Blood Haven and Shattered Skull and Allen West of Obituary/Six Feet Under fame. So its no surprise that a majority of Southwicked‘s debut album sounds a lot, no, JUST like West era Obituary and Six Feet Under.

You’d think with a name like Southwicked, a confederate flag on the cover and even the opening bars of the title track, that this would be a swampy southern take on death metal, which might be pretty cool. But instead, Death’s Crown is totally identifiable Allen West riffs laced with a few more burly chunky Belgian throes. It’s not terrible, but is as basic, bare bones as death metal gets, and it’s hard not to think that most of these riffs are merely Obituary cast offs (” Killing Spree”, “The Phantom Prince”, “Graveyard of Bones”, “Charming Karma” .) But by the same token, the guy wrote some of Obituary‘s most classic stuff, so it’s hard not to dig some of them, as he really hones in on that The End Complete/Back from the Dead era sound.

But other than those nostalgic Obituary moments, Southwicked offers up little else. Vocalist Sven Poets does little more than a monotone Chris Barnes impression and the rest of the material (“Craving for Blood”, “Green River Killing Fields”, “The Only Living Witness” etc”) is little more than uninspired, serial killer inspired, mid paced death metal that offers up no more than Six Feet Under‘s early stuff, which West was responsible for also penning, but its as uninspired as he was in that band. The production also comes across as a mere rumbling Six Feet Under clone.

If you are really craving simple death metal that sounds exactly  like The End Complete or Haunted, go ahead and give this ago. But if you want something a little more from your death metal, I’d avoid this. Or actually, I’d recommend actually going back and listening to The End Complete and World Demise, as this is pretty much the same riffs.

[Visit the band's website]

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