Art Of The Insane

Denata are three guys from Sweden who play straight-forward, pounding thrash. By the outside looks of the album, one cant help but to think of Reign In Blood. The traditional corpse-filled piñatas, the bloody cutlery, the standards are covered in the cover. Even the tracklisting has thrash written all over it. The longest song clocks in at 3.28, and even that one is a cover tune. Marionettes Of Death starts off with an intro riff almost straight out of Fight Fire With Fire. But all Metallica comparisons are thrown out of the window, when the singer-guitarist, Tomas Andersson opens his mouth. His voice strays away from the usual shouty thrash yell, to a more grunty, death metal like voice, resembling Leprosy-era Schuldiner in some parts. It suits the music well otherwise, but his pronunciation made me even laugh at one point, which I have to say took credibility from the tales of murder, torture and Armageddon. His voice can also begin to wear off its power to the end of the record, as it has very little variety. The band has listened to its share of early Death and Slayer. Prophecies and the Title track could very well be old Death-demo tracks with their haunting acoustic parts, while Born In Sin and Below The Surface are such old school-thrash that I just want to smile. Åke Danielsson is a very talented drummer, taking care of the Lombardo-like percussion with style. Even though he´s not as distinctive as the Great Dave, he can sure handle those skins well. The production suits this album well, as it is not overtly polished, with the guitar sounds being very vintage, dry and 80s. The lack of good melodies also wears away the appeal of this album to me quite a bit. They don’t noodle much solos on the album, with almost all of the songs being structured as riff-after-riff-after-riff. Although Convicted does have a funny Kerry King-like “bee”-solo in it. Satanic Thrash Hell, with its nice, Angel Of Death-like, grinding riff, takes my nomination for the “Lyrics Of The Year Award.” Or what do you think about this: ”Power up and lets raise the dead with a total fucking thrash attack. In metal we trust theres no room for lust lets mosh, mosh, mosh to dust.” The song has a lot of nice energy to, I think this cut will work very well live. The album is closed up with a very working cover of Celtic Frosts Morbid Tales. Apart from the aforementioned songs, the other material just sinks to a sea of mediocrity, with the riffs being “OK”, but nothing to cheer or mosh for. For fans of old school thrash with some small death metal overtones, check this out. Even just for the sake of Satanic Thrash Hell. Serious or not, its downright hilarious;)