I’ve got some mixed feelings about Axis of Advance’s new album. Overall `The List’ is not so bad. It’s more or less decently played, fairly brutal death metal. However the band doesn`t impress me much. Their sound is pretty bad. Believe me, drums DON’T have to sound this way! Maybe without mic’s they do… shitty sounding drums irritate me, as I myself am also a drummer. The overall guitar sound is rather blurry. It is not really the kind of sound you can listen to for hours and hours, a bit annoying actually. The vocalist is not that bad, but is not very convincing either… Their playing however is pretty decent, the drummer plays quite tight and produces some interesting breaks.

The guitarist has managed to come up with some fairly nice riffs. Axis of Advance play a form of death metal but are influenced by other extreme metal-genres as well. For instance, some typical thrash-riffs can be distinguished and there are some black metal-moments. It’s just not that special which is a feeling you sometimes get about certain albums. I feel mostly irritated about the shitty sound and the mediocre song material on this album. Nice artwork though! But unfortunately this grade is all I can give them with an honest mind. Maybe next time I can award this band some extra points when they come up with a decent production and better songs.