One Man Army And The Undead Quartet - 21st Century Killing Machine

*=Staff's pick	Killing Machine* Devil On The Red Carpet* Public Enemy No. 1 No Apparent Motive Hell Is For Heroes* When Hatred Comes To Life So Grim So True So Real* Behind The Church Branded By Iron Bulldozer Frenzy

Genre	Thrash/Death Metal	Johan Lindstrand	Vocals
Tracks	10	Pekka Kiviaho	Guitar
Runningtime	48 Min.	Mikael Lagerblad	Guitar
Label	Nuclear Blast	Robert Axelsson	Bass
Release	13 Jan. 2006	Marek Dobrowolski	Drums
Country	Sweden	-	Keyboards
Similar artists	Arch Enemy, The Haunted, Kreator

Vocalist Johan Lindstrand of death metallers The Crown felt the urge to continue with something new after The Crown was put to rest, and by December 2004 One Man Army And The Undead Quartet was official.

One Man Army And The Undead Quartet deliver their aggressive metal uncompromisingly and have one foot in thrash and the other one is anchored in the soils of death metal. There are apparent influences of Slayer with some intense thrash riffing combined with death metal aggressiveness and determined growls from Johan Lindstrand. What I like most about One Man Army, besides the bombastic riffing, are the melodic and aggressive guitar leads. Similar to Arch Enemy you get great guitar playing and melodic leads as well as some fast solo parts. And at times names like Marty Friedman (ex-Megadeth) and Kirk Hammet (Metallica) comes to mind in some solo parts.

So Grim So True So Real is one of the highlights on 21st Century Killing Machine even if it hard to pick out tracks that stand above the others. It has a determined pace with some fast drumming and even if the song in itself isn't that melodic with the vocals, the leads and solos make up more than well for it. The album starts with some really heavy riffing in the vein of Kreator in the track Killing Machine, and it sounds to be unstoppable with its marching rhythm as the band sets the standard right from the start. You can draw many references with their music to other bands, and they seem to have been taken the better out of most things, but if I were to compare with one band I would say that Arch Enemy is by me the closest comparison, not least with a track like as Devil On The Red Carpet.

I absolutely love everything with this album, the cover artwork, the melodies, the riffing, the leads and solos, the vocals as well as the production and mixing. But, there always has to be a but, it lacks a bit of originality if I should be honest, and even if there are sparks flying from this album there is potential for more generating of sparks in this band, but more likely I probably just had to come up with something to complain about. Nevertheless, so far this is definitely one of the best albums of this year, yeah, I know it is early but when December comes, 21st Century Killing Machine from One Man Army And The Undead Quartet will still be among the better albums released in 2006.