Planet Pandemonium

When Loudblast disbanded 5 years ago, I just couldn't believe that such a gifted band was about to disband. Although they never had the success they deserved, probably due to their nationality, but also because of distribution problems and lack of marketing among other things Dispite the lack of constancy in their releases, they had quite a great following in the underground due to their intense touring activities with the likes of Death and Cannibal Corpse. Sublime Dementia and the mini CD Cross The Threshold is definitely important in the death metal scene. The band indeed disbanded, exploring other musical horizons with the likes of Clearcut. The rumours I heard a year ago of a possible reunion were true and the band finally comes out of the shadows with a brand new brilliant album called Planet Pandemonium. This album is with no doubt superior to its predecessor Fragments released in 1998 that was a little disappointing to me, especially after the amazing Cross The Threshold mini CD, although it remains of a high standard. On that mini CD, in addition to two rerecorded songs and a Slayer cover, the band had two new tracks that were incredibly heavy and groovy as described in my review of that album, whereas on Fragments they returned to a more in your face kind of death metal, from which I come up with the term of little deception. At least Fragments featured the best artwork ever of French artist Bolek Budzyn (I know it doesn't sound that much of a French name). Planet Pandemonium also features another artwork from Bolek Budzyn, but since the band doesn't focus on the flesh and sex matters anymore, the cover isn't as suggestive as their previous artworks. Besides, I don't really see the colleration of the album title and the cover. Anyway, music matters... As for the music, this is indubitalby their best work since the release of Sublime Dementia which means that their 5 year break is totally justified. Although the album remains more or less of an in your face but totally technical influenced kind of death metal, the band added that little touch of groove that was so preponderant on Cross the Threshold and that was bitterly missing on Fragments. However I think this new album fails with very little margin to be as great as Sublime Dementia due to the better guitar work on the later. It's all the more stange because this new album features guitar work from Alex Colin-Tocquaine who is no other than the mainman behind cult French band Agressor. Sublime Dementia featured indeed some of the best guitar solos the band ever produced and although on this album songs such as The Serpent's Circle, Pain Brothers and The Descent do feature excellent guitar work, none of them can possibly compete with what has been done on My Last Journey. Planet Pandemonium remains an excellent album due to its overall consistency compared to Fragments and also because the band offers a much more varied death metal thoughout the whole album, offering some of the best riffs the band has ever come up with. Besides, even though I have been listening to it over the last week almost 15 to 20 times (my wife couldn't agree more, she would even say I listen to it while sleeping...), it hasn't quite stopped growing on me. Finally I hope we will not have to wait another 4 or 5 years to hear something new from the band as I strongly hope they will first of all do some intense touring all over Europe, release another mini CD with some leftovers from the Planet Pandemonium recording sessions coupled with some extras (a couple of rerecorded version and a great cover) and finally release a follow up to this excellent album within the next couple of years. Loudblast is back and rulezzzzzz.