PRELUDIUM

At one time it seemed like place of origin alone was enough to make even the worst Polish death metal better than average in worldwide comparison terms. Then again, a history and a little momentum have a way of making everything that follows seem just a little better than it should. That brings us to PRELUDIUM's "Impending Hostility", which has all the trappings of a Polish DM juggernaut, including BEHEMOTH-isms left, right, and center, as well as a very Polish guttural vocal treatment from consonant-ridden guitarist Lukasz Dziamarski. The fact is that while everything "sounds" good, it only takes a couple of tracks before one faces the hard reality of a Polish DM album that may be better than average (from a worldwide point of view),but not by very much.

Generally speaking and in the context of entertaining only the diehard death-metalheads, there isn't a whole lot about which to complain concerning "Impending Hostility". The blast-beaten tracks are quite vicious and the mid-tempo churners are rather epic, in a post-apocalyptic kind of way. In other words, you'd not hear terms like "suck" or "lame" uttered at most gatherings of the denim 'n leathered, as the punch packed by PRELUDIUM is at least forceful.

The problem is that once you've made your way through the album a few times the lack of impacting moments becomes obvious. As much as I hate to make references to riff recycling (I mean, come on now, this is death metal),there is a fair amount of it going on here. There are freighter-loads of BEHEMOTH riffs punched up with syncopated drum bursts, not to mention all those exotic/Eastern guitar leads, which also bring NILE to mind with some regularity. Even then, it is not like any of the material on "Impending Hostility" will have noses turning up from the pungency. When compared to albums like "Sacrilege of Humanity" from Polish DM ambassadors CALM HATCHERY though, PRELUDIUM's new one falls short of memorable.