Rating: 8.5

Country: Poland

Release Date: 2006

Record Label: Via Nocturna

Track list:
01 Stone Wings of the Emperor
02 Beauty of Pain
03 El-Alamein
04 God of Shadows
05 Obexob (The 22nd Hour)
06 Execution
07 Evolutionary Burning
08 Psycho Desert
09 I'm Coming For Your Throne


Band Website: Calm Hatchery

Calm Hatchery - El-Alamein

Panzerhauser - Guitar
Zombie - Guitar
Hacel - Bass
Radad - Drums
Szczepan - vocals

Before I begin, I feel the utmost need to make a few facts known –

1. El-Alamein is not a name of a terrorist, but of a place in Egypt.
2. Calm Hatchery are from Poland and not Egypt.
3. They sound nothing like Nile.

With that out of the way, hopefully you wiseasses will now pay attention to what I have to say about Calm Hatchery.

Opening onslaught “Stone Wings of the Emperor”, though purely Polish in essence, is executed in such a passionate war-spirit of Panzerchrist that even the most devout Gandhi followers would blurt out obscenities and snatch a rifle, dive and roll over on the ground, and get ready to create a massacre of their own. “Beauty of Pain” showcases Calm Hatchery‘s technical skills, which is at par with Decapitated no less, and is punctuated by the incisive and fluvial riffs of the venerable Vader. It also features a lofty screaming lead, sounding like it had attained its height by jumping on a landmine. From then on, the prominence of the Hate influence is made as glaringly clear as an erect nipple pressing against a tight-fitting wet tee. The intro to the title track, apparently sounding like the drone of a bomber passing overhead, comprehensively confirms its presence when their dropped incendiary riffs explode on your head like a watermelon, thankfully indicative of the actual significance of El-Alamein where a decisive WWII battle took place. The album marches on decidedly to the tunes of classic Cain's Way Hate till the listener intermittently gets to hear gargantuan riffs being released from the legendary American B-29 bomber Morbid Angel, at which you stand rivetted at attention amidst a pool of own urine.

Interestingly, early Corpsegrinder-era Cannibal Corpse makes a rather tumultuous appearance in the second half of the album with “Execution” and “Evolutionary Burning” where even the most sterilised sheep would get infected by their ridiculous catchiness. Anti-cloning protesters, sit down, because both the songs are expertly crossbred with Hate influences. Not wanting to snub the hugely popular Behemoth by their exclusion, Calm Hatchery have dedicated “Psycho Desert” almost entirely to them and while doing that, have also honoured the guru of their newfangled death metal life: Morbid Angel. “I'm Coming For Your Throne” is exactly what Calm Hatchery seem to be telling them, after hauling the impressed master on their side for the bowel-tugging finale.

If the above dissection hasn't made it abundantly clear to you that Calm Hatchery play exemplary Polish death metal, then it probably never will. So kindly fuck off; true death metal fans, kindly sneer at them and read on. Calm Hatchery is a paradigm of the breed of death metal bands that offer nothing groundbreaking, probably don't even intend to, yet by extensively studying their contemporaries and incorporating only the positives from them, they elevate themselves to a faultless standard well above the related mediocre one. It is with their strategically devised song structures, dynamic and devastative guitar firepower, skilful drum-kit blasting, advanced production values, and under command of a stentorian voice, that Calm Hatchery make that happen.

El-Alamein is a fucking sublime debut, makes me want to go visit that barren place.

June 30th, 2007