Band:	Crushing Axes
Album:	Black Book
Style:	Death metal
Release date:	2012

01. Skull Crusher
02. Barbaric Ways
03. Castle Of Bones
04. Burning Land
05. Last Man Standing
06. Farewell
07. A Good Day For Killing
08. Nights Of Sorrow
09. Scream
10. Evil Out Of The Cage
11. Holyground
12. Finale

Look up "brass tacks, DIY death metal album that's wrecked more shit than Spicy Bomb burritos from Dairy Mart" in your dictionary, and, depending on what year your Webster came out, Black Book will be there. 22 percent sure of that. Crushing Axes is a one-man band, and that one man practically sweats out axes that crush. This is some raw, stripped down, ugly, brutal, nasty-sounding death metal. Which is another way of saying it sounds good, which it does...

Sometimes.

Thing is, the fact that this is the product of one guy is a bit too evident throughout. I mean, the dude is talented; he can write a mean riff and growl a mean growl and all, but this whole thing lacks the dynamism that's so important for angry, aggressive shit to be really engaging. It's lacking pretty sorely in the magic of a band working together department?magic that some people have captured on their own in the past.

That, and the growling is... iffy. It's got a clarity, an almost spoken quality to it that's unique enough, but "unique" is probably where the positive-ish adjectives have to end. It's not terrible, but it's not really, you know, "good" either.

Some of the solos are shit, too--like "whoa, there's another E-string?" shitty (see "Farewell")--as are some of the riffs.

But it's all balanced out by moments that work well. Overall, this still sometimes sounds really good. And that's worth something. This is stripped down, amateurish death metal. You know what to expect. It could have been a whole lot better, no doubt about that, but it's not terrible to begin with. It'd probably be best to approach with caution, but do take the time to approach if you enjoy simplified death.