Rating: 7.8

Country: USA

Release Date: 2005

Record Label: From Beyond Productions

Track list:
1. Age Of Hell's Rebirth
2. Death Metal Maniac
3. Trust No One
4. Curse Of The Dead
5. Fires Thet Consume
6. Worlds Abyss
7. Powerhead
8. Sickened To Behold
9. Wormfeast

Total playing time: 40:25

Band Website: Cianide

Cianide - Hell's Rebirth

Scott Carroll- Guitar
Andy Kuizin- Drums
Mike Peruin- Bass, Vocals

If there’s anything discerning metalheads can depend on in an increasingly mercurial world, it’s that Chicago’s death metal stalwarts Cianide will kick your fucking ass. Developing parallel to scene pioneers like Usurper and Funeral Nation, Cianide have for the past 18 years sculpted a formidable legacy, cementing their irrefutable position at the zenith of death metal’s underground. If you have been watching this band’s progress over the past few years, you will no doubt have noticed that Cianide have largely gone the way of city mates Usurper, eschewing their insalubrious Celtic Frost leanings to pursue a more aggressive, pedal-to-the-metal approach. This trend continues on 'Hell’s Rebirth', Cianide forsaking any Winter/Hellhammer-isms entirely to craft a bludgeoning, merciless bulldozer of an album that will surely rank amongst the finest death metal efforts this year.

The modus operandi here is, as always, NASTY, pulsating, primitive, whiplash-inducing death metal of the highest order, complete with PLENTY of single bass drum blasting ala grind-death’s most unhallowed epoch (Repulsion/Terrorizer). The sonic debt they owe to Tom G Warrior and Martin Ain has all but vanished here, as certain riffs still affectionately reference Switzerland’s death metal legend, particularly the fucking AWESOME main riff/bridge of ‘’Curse Of The Dead’’. Elsewhere, we are treated to barreling, severely downtuned (but not in a Rottrevore sense, perhaps in an early Morbid Angel fashion, though Cianide clearly sound nothing like Morbid Angel in any other aspect), bloodthirsty DEATH METAL in its most unpretentious incarnation. Production is virtually flawless here- kick drums are bold and FORCEFUL, apocalyptic sledgehammers that positively leap out of the mix and assault the listener, guitars are sludgy and diseased, yet clearly defined from the rampaging bass.

The riffs! The riffs! If there has been ONE constant throughout Cianide’s two disparate incarnations, it’s been their irrepressible panache for spectacular riffing. The entirety of “Curse Of The Dead” is a surge of sublime spine-snapping savagery, a bestial barrage of simple but impossibly catchy chords, driving, grindy rhythms and grotesque bellowsthat refuses to relent, a 4 minute headwrecking masterpiece that you WILL revisit constantly. “Death Metal Maniac” revisits 'Blessed Are The Sick' era Morbid Angel, while its concluding verse will incite many a shit-faced grin: “HELLHAMMER FROST/SLAUGHTER KREATOR/ REPULSION and SODOM/VENOM BATHORY/AUTOPSY DEATH/MASSACRE DEATHSTRIKE/MORBID ANGEL/SLAYER and POSSESSED!”. Not content with merely summoning these ancient spirits through musical sigils, Cianide show their reverence by invoking them by name. That is fucking DEATH METAL, ladies and gentlemen! Also, as if to prove that they haven’t ENTIRELY abandoned their yen for the low n’slow, we have 10 minute album closer “Wormfeast”, a festering pit of fetid Hellhammer worship executed in distinct Cianide fashion, a throwback for all the fans who lament their invariable progression.

One question inevitably arises when digesting 'Hell’s Rebirth'- just how does this compare in the grander framework of Cianide’s career? While I tend to lean towards their earlier opuses, and still believe that 'Death, Doom and Destruction' will forever stand as their masterpiece (and the single best Chicago death metal record since Death Strike’s 'Fuckin’ Death' and Master’s 'Unreleased ’85 Album', this is a choice slab of molten, ugly death metal, stripped of all the gloss and varnish that would obscure Cianide’s unapologetic love for extreme music. This is just as essential as Usurper's 'Cryptobeast', even better than 'Divide & Conquer' and a MUST-BUY.

July 10th, 2005