Mr. Death is a Death Metal act that hails from Sweden, home of many promising Death Metal acts. Last year, the band reissued their demo as a vinyl single, as well as made their full-length debut with Detached from Life, which didn't necessarily wow the world, but showed what the band was capable of. Many though, over time, the band would grow and mature their sound, and in a sense they did, taking ques from many of the more stand out Swedish Death Metal acts such as Bloodbath, which is the approach the band took for this six song MCD release through Agonia Records. But, while this release offers some good tracks, it just also features the same kind of hardships that befell their debut release.
Death Suits You, an obvious play on words, finds the band growing and maturing into their Death Metal sound, but incorporating more of what makes the Swedish Death Metal scene sound so unique. While there's not really much of an atmosphere to the recording, the songs are solid Death Metal recordings, and show influence from some of the countries most renown acts, such as Bloodbath and Dismember. However, the first track off the release stands apart from the rest, and honestly comes off a little more like a generic track that has some American Death Metal impact to it. "March to the Dark" is a fast paced, hard hitting track, but it doesn't really offer much outside the intensity, as well as an odd use of a deep vocal distortion form start to back, and finds the vocals even going into the more Black Metal rhaspy style at times, especially near the end. While it's still a good song, it just sounds odd compared to the rest of the material on the effort.
"On Day 51" is where the release shows some of it's inspirations, but luckily it stays at just that: Inspirations. The music takes on a slightly grim tone, and is some guitar chords that sound similar to material Bloodbath would put out, but it's only during certain parts of the verses of the song. The music itself features the standard Swedish Death Metal composition of having some melody to the chords, but also manages to set a subtle atmosphere to the mix, which carries over throughout the rest of the songs, but really does it's job well to set a dismal yet intimidating mood for "Curse of the Masses". And, well, that's about it. From this point on the album seems to just be well done typical Swedish Death Metal, and while it's nothing original, it is still well done and enjoyable for what it is.
So, with the exception of "March to the Dark", which is only faulty of being severely out of place and more of an experimental track then an actual Mr. Death song for this MCD, Death Suits You is a good release. Nothing spectacular, drop everything and go buy it, but it plays well into what one would expect from today's Swedish Death Metal style, and sometimes adds it's own element of originality to it. Of course, if it weren't for the atmosphere that the music is creating, this release wouldn't really be as special, but that becomes a key part to this release, despite if the material is generic or not. It's worth a listen, especially if just enjoy Death Metal, but, in all honesty, Death Suits You shows that Mr. Death is still growing into their sound.
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