The thought behind the bandname Total Devastation is a good one. Two drunks were just checking out the new Impaled Nazarene record Rapture somewhere in 1998 and just picked a random song of that album as their band’s moniker. Stories have never been better than this if you ask me!

Well, the band has released a number of demos and this is actually their third full-length. The style they play is, how could it be otherwise with such a bandname, death metal. But not just any death metal that can be categorized as easy as cartons of eggs. No sir, I think I am holding one of the best death metal records of this entire year if you ask me. Perhaps the best even, not counting Misery Index’s Discordia as death metal. And I thought it would be Coldworker’s job to take credit for this!

 

As you can see I’m very impressed with the material these Finnish metalheads produce. They do not just stick to one certain type of death metal, but they like to play around with everything that’s in their limits. Considering that this is a six-piece band you can easily say that there’s quite a lot of free space to experiment with. The base for the music is heavy grooving (death) metal with a lot of thought to it. Also important is the fact that they have a guy who handles electronics and backing vocals, something I love to see in metal bands. People like this always manage to give the music some extra layers and more dimensions, just like this guy does.

 

As the album progresses you don’t even have the impression that you’re listening to a death metal album anymore, although the level of brutality in the heavy parts is still pretty high. But the variation and the songwriting is at such a high level on Wreck, you can just keep listening over and over again without getting bored. This is definitely something for any metalhead to check out, especially if you’re into groovy shit. Think of bands like Mastodon and Intronaut to Entombed and even Gojira.