Devil Lee Rot - At Hell's Deep

*=Staff's pick	The Battle/At Hell's Deep* Man Made Of Steel Prepare For War* Danger In The Dark Heaven Will Pay Blade In The Night Future Invaders* Devil Lust Metal Avengers Fistful Of Fury*

Genre	Thrash Metal	Devil Lee Rot	Vocals
Tracks	11	Harri Van Hell	Guitar
Runningtime	43 Min.	J. Voltage	Guitar
Label	Iron Fist Productions	The Demon	Bass
Release	29 August 2005	-	Drums
Country	Sweden	-	Keyboards
Similar artists	Slayer, Venom

These guys are true. Need I say more? Wonderful riffing and great melodies characterise Devil Lee Rot's thrash. It could be almost a full pointer, musically. But what the hell is the front man, 'singer' Devil Lee Rot himself doing? A monotone growling/screaming, without getting a tone right. It could be considered cool for one song, at most, but then it becomes extremely enervating. I'm not very sensitive in this matter and I definitely prefer a voice with raw edge and originality before a clean and technically perfect, but totally uncharacteristic one. But there are limits… Unfortunately this is a detail that dominates the overall impression of the record. I guess this is just the thing that the true fans adore the most. But it is also the thing that will keep Devil Lee Rot a bit underground. Perhaps he likes it better there.

If you try to just listen to the music, you'll find a load of great classic thrash with riffs straight from the metal hell. It starts with a heavy, but melodic, intro. Already here we find a nice feeling in the guitar play. Then the title track starts with a fast old school thrash riff. So far so good. Then Devil Lee starts to scream… The album continues with raw, hard metal, brilliantly mixed with just enough melodies. Future Invaders is my favourite, with its Seek & Destroy-riff. But it all becomes comedy when Mr Rot's voice reaches a new hell's deep in this song, where he sounds like a tone death muppet. The production is scanty, just as it should be to create the authentic edgy live spirit. So what to think of such an uneven performance? Well, the grade must be set somewhere in between the extremes.

Production	Vocals	Compositions
8	2	8

Summary
5 chalices of 10 - David