Rating: 8.2

Country: Switzerland

Genre: Death Metal

Record Label: Massacre Records

Release Date: 2007

Track list:
1. Can't Afford Won't Go Forward
2. Premier Killing League
3. Isolated
4. No Means Nothing
5. From Ashes to Ashes
6. I, Terrorist
7. The System Has Failed
8. Into the Unknown
9. The Great Masquerade
10. Trapped Inside

Total playing time 38:16

Band Website: Requiem

Requiem - Premier Killing League

Michi Kuster - Vocals
Philipp Klauser - Guitar
Ralph Inderbitzin - Guitar
Ralf Winzer - Bass
Reto Crola - drums

Requiem's debut full length album, Formed at Birth, was a solid if hackneyed release, but the Swiss band's third and latest release, Premier Killing League, proves to a fucking ripper of a death metal album, surpassing even my most optimistic projections of their music. It transports you directly in the midst of an intense scene of a modern potentially apocalyptic battle wherein you find yourself clinging on to a charging futuristic version of a formidable tank that is currently wreaking havoc on its contemporaries.

Propelled by powerful twin-guitars, Requiem slickly glide across the gravellish blood-spattered terrain with their impregnable armour and endless onboard supply of lethal catchy riffs, thumping tank gun blasts, incessant machinegun rattling and body-seeking hooks. Even though the opening song displays moves of Panzerchrist with some of its playing time commandeered by Behemoth, it is the following title song which reveals Requiem v3.0 to be a product of a successful assimilation of technologies from selected advanced countries namely US, Sweden and Denmark, where characteristic elements of Malevolent Creation, Vomitory and Exmortem circa Berzerker Campaign come into play and overthrow all resistance. Fittingly, that song culminates with loud and hoarse war cries of “Premier Killing League”. And as if greatly encouraged by that, in “Isolated”, the successive killer song that is reminiscent of Fearer, Requiem go all out in their aggression, firing guns tirelessly while menacing bass lines are employed. With an underlying Bolt Thrower influence in "No Means Nothing", the music takes on the aura of invincibility as the song charges ahead to crush the enemies underfoot, and slackens only to reiterate the song name in two distinctly different tones. This simple yet effective vocal strategy is also adopted in the successive song that is laden with deceptive speed-breaking parts where Michi Kuster alternately growls and screeches out words of the same line to create a terrific contrast.

“I, Terrorist” cruises ahead in the standard Requiem manner when near the two minute mark, the music suddenly starts choking due to the brisk start-stop parts, which almost sound like your disc skipping for a microsecond but resuming where it left without disrupting the momentum. When it happens again, a brilliant delivery of vocals suited just for that part follows to greatly amplify that effect. At the end of the same song, the music runs into miry ground where it trudges across laboriously, and after being used to their free-flowing pace, the struggle in this section is only too palpable. “Into the Unknown” uses the highly expressive black metal-tinted riffs of Malevolent Creation to insidiously breach the ranks of the opposition while the immensely skilled drummer fires away at his high hat to the sound of empty bullet shells falling into a pile beside him. Halfway into it comes the most excellent heaving part from Malevolent Creation's In Cold Blood/Eternal era, causing mad headbanging frenzy and moshful mayhem. For "The Great Masquerade", Requiem take inspiration from the great warlords themselves, Bolt Thrower, to add bone-crushing power to it. The sleek and lucid yet gritty production highlights the intricacies of their superior musicianship, though a meatier sound would have probably given a stronger impact.

Despite the unoriginality and steadfast direction, Requiem have enough firepower to pierce through the armour of scepticism donned by today's pure death metal fans, and going by their usually combustible nature, easily blow them up along with their house out of excitement. Premier Killing League is a smashing death metal album with substance and lasting power. Go to any lengths obtain it.

September 21st, 2008