by Ed Rivadavia

Tiamat's first album, Sumerian Cry, features slightly above average death metal, but this is actually a compliment considering that most bands in this genre take years to evolve past pure noise. The cryptic synthesizer of the instrumental title track soon gives way to the band's brutal buzzsaw guitars and vocalist Hellslaughter's (Johan Edlund's) gruff screaming and unintelligible lyrics. Still, Tiamat focuses on solid riffs and varying tempos instead of all-out speed (except on "Evilized" and "The Malicious Paradise" -- these are pretty much all speed), obtaining especially interesting results on "Apothesis of Morbidity" and "Sumerian Cry (Part 2)."