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Hail Of Bullets: III - The Rommel chronicles

23/10/13 || Ironpants

“Achtung stillgestanden!!”

Gather your men and rally your forces, because you are facing a new release from Hail of Bullets. You know when you are sensing that your life force is pouring out of your body, just for the fact that the death metal releases today isn’t really what they used to be? Yes of course there have been several good or OK releases this year so far, and you lean on them, as they are the only thing that keeps you going. Just like some respiratory life support, while your hope and life slowly fade away. Suddenly, a release comes along that act like an adrenaline shot straight to your heart and your life comes flowing back, and as limb for limb starts to react, the people around you see in your eyes that something is happening. Well, maybe I am exaggerating a little bit, but sometimes you hear a voice in your head from the first note or chord, you know, that inside voice of yours that go – “Yessss!!”

After that little prelude in ‘Swoop of the falcon’ , with some wind blowing, and a few notes from some military music the double bass drums from Mr. Warby and the chugging guitars from duo Baayens/Gebédi gets the song going. And when Van Drunen kicks the song in to gear with his distinct and oh so beautiful voice…well, I stand in attention for the rest of the song, willing to join forces with the war machine that is Hail Of Bullets. Damn, I would follow them on their military crusade just to polish their muddy, bloody boots. This is the death metal sound that everybody should learn from.

The sound picture is near perfect, the bass drums sounds almost like shots into two big wet sandbags from the trenches, the snare is the sound of rifles firing in the battlefield, the guitars and bass are the engine sounds from Tiger tanks and Van Drunen’s vocals is the storytelling voice to guide you through this historical lesson about the rise and fall of strategic supremacist Erwin Rommel. When listening to this in headphones, the guitars surround you like a hail of bullets as you scooch down and take cover behind the first cover you can find. I send praise in the general direction of Ed Warby and Dan Swanö for the quality of the production.

Martin Van Drunen is worthy a chapter of his own, and I can’t point out enough how great his voice sounds. He has been mentioned numerous times before, both here at GD and in other places, but I think he manages to top his earlier works here? Excellent articulation, but still with that kind of desperate, insane tone of voice. How does he do that?

We have ten songs fired at us in this third full length album from the Dutch masters Hail of Bullets, and almost all of them are real killers, and they get your head nodding and feet marching all the way through. After that first song, we step into ‘Pour le merité’ that has this eerie swarming riff in the background that is just delicious. And when the song “DG-7” began with that chugging slithering slow riff, well… I began writing that letter to momma that I mention from time to time.

As I said, almost all songs are worth mentioning, but there is one song that made me produce a small imaginary question mark, and that is the last song, “Death of a field marshal”, it’s quite long and also really slow, which made the album slowly roll over the goal line, almost like a tank struggling on its last fumes of diesel before halting to an end. Even if you can imagine it is supposed to be a mood settler, explaining Rommel’s last days in life, it left you a bit off the hook.

But what the hell, this is near perfect, and I must say that Hail of Bullets have reached a new level with their pummeling music that fills a blank spot amongst my notes for “Classic death metal album of the year”. This album is solid as a steel plate for a tank turret and it withstands all unfriendly shots fired from a safe distance. Because the crew of this battle tank is safe inside and they know that any opposition that dares to go near them will be run over by their well oiled death metal machine as they continue towards big deeds and victory. I salute you.

At ease soldiers.

Information
Released: 2013
Label: Metal Blade Records
Website: www.hailofbullets.com
Band
Martin Van Drunen: vocals
Paul Baayens: guitars
Stephan Gebédi: guitars
The Van Eekelen: bass
Ed Warby: drums

Tracklist
01. Swoop of the falcon
02. Pour le merité
03. DG-7
04. To the last breath of man and beast
05. DAK
06. The desert fox
07. Tobruk
08. Farewell to Africa
09. The final front
10. Death of a field marshal

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