THE MELVINS
Nude With Boots
(Ipecac)

HERMANO
...Into the Exam Room
(Regain)

UNLEASHED
Hammer Battalion
(SPV)

RUN YOUR MOUTH
3-Way HC/Garage Split
(Rumour Control)

CABRóN
Mexican Shoe Thief
(Robot Enemy)

A HORSE CALLED WAR
Stumble at Every Hurdle 

(Calculon)

HEATDEATH
S/T 

(Conspiracy)

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The thing about these leather clad Vikings is that ever since their humble beginnings almost two decades ago they have consistently managed to deliver solid melodic and nicely blackened death metal. Clearly, among their contemporaries (In Flames, Dismember, Entombed just to name three of the most popular) Unleashed are among the few ones that have opted for their sound to remained unaltered. Even better, the quality of their releases has always kept a nice high level, making Unleashed easily the most reliable extreme Swedish death metal band of their generation.

If you have any doubts, just think about it; In Flames jumped the shark a few years ago once their music started stepping into nu-metalllism and got so chorus-centric, Entombed have also had some serious missteps with some of their most important band members exiting and their music losing some of the sludgey punch of their beginnings. Of the still standing bunch Dismember is the most usually compared to Unleashed and while both opted to never experience any sort of evolution, the latter got musically better while the former kept their sloppiness and have used such handicap to their advantage. Both bands, remain to these days high profile because of their place in history but rather obscure because of the anonymity that their style precludes.

That said, Hammer Battalion, the band’s ninth record, is as good as the band’s ever been. Improved with time and making good use of their proficient chops, Unleashed now deliver at least nine solid songs of classic death metal. The last three are filler, but that shouldn’t be taken against the band. For the most part though, Hammer Battallion is filled with hummable songs, catchy dedications of grand blasphemy. The riffs are chunky offering a more modern and less abrasive sound than the one offered during the early 90’s (when their generation was young and groundbreaking) and more easily palatable to the masses. They even step into black metal-like extreme speed, as is the case of “Marching Off to War” where Unleashed goes epic, for their standards anyway. The song, very much like the rest of the album, is massive with a balanced mixture of menacing melodies and sharp-edged string work.   Bassist and vocalist Johnny Hedlund remains a staple of Swedish metal, with a clear yet uncomfortably moist pronunciation he leads the band to one more triumph. For band like Unleashed it’s all about winning small battles. As these and most in the underground wish, the grand war will never be won.

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