Band:	Progressive Death Procedure
Album:	Progressive Death Procedure
Style:	Death metal
Release date:	2003
A review by:	Deadsoulman

01. According To The Procedure
02. Global Warning
03. Cassandra's Dream
04. Brave New Fear
05. White Cells
06. PdP

I like it when I receive that kind of album [a demo here], because my faith in the future comes back. I like it because I find interesting to see how more and more young bands try to sound different than the masses. This does not mean they don't respect their elders, but just that they are able to take their influences to another level without copying it stupidly.

Progressive Death Procedure is a Greek band exiled in the UK for their studies, that plays melodic thrash/death. Here a lot of you probably goes away thinking that this is probably only another clone of Dark Tranquillity or Children Of Bodom... Well, stay here because this is not the case. Of course you can find some Scandinavian tunes in there, some sounds a la At The Gates, but I defy anyone to find similarities with Laiho's band. When I say death/thrash, you gotta understand that this is thrash music with death vocals, and that's all.

The album starts with the catchy instrumental intro 'According to the procedure' that reminds me of the good old days of the Bay Area. 'Global Warning' then is a mix between Master Of Puppets and the old Testament era-Practice What You Preach, with brutal breaks a la Cannibal Corpse. It has one of the most catchy thrashy riffs I've heard these last times. 'Cassandra's Dream' also sounds like old-school thrash, but with progressive jazzy drums. This band makes the trend of long instrumental intros revive, for my greatest pleasure because I really regret the 3-minutes intros a la 'Master Of Puppets'. Here the originality is to have 80's thrash music with guttural death vocals. Ok, this is not true all along the album, 'Brave New Fear' has the trademark of pure melodic death metal a la At The Gates, and 'White Cells' clearly shows these guys have listened to The Gallery [it makes me think about Dark Tranquillity's masterpiece 'Lethe']. But once more this is a great quality work. Even if these guys are young, they are already experienced [each of them has already recorded at least one album with previous bands], and they play and sound like a real band that has spent a long time on the songwriting. Undoubtedly these guys are talented. I am stuck by the fact that for budget restriction reasons, they have recorded these six songs in only three days! And they have a sound that is not perfect but fully acceptable.

I think that if they last long enough, PDP will become a killer-riff machine [there are some clues... listen to 'PdP'], but they at least deserve that labels get interested in them. Instead of signing one more 'new Children Of Bodom', please make a good action for once.

Highlights: Global Warning, Cassandra's Dream