Landmine Marathon - Rusted Eyes Awake

Myspace: http://www.myspace.com/landminemarathon
Release Date: 2008
Label: Prosthetic Records
Release Type: Full-Length

Now I don't know about you, but I personally think the name Landmine Marathon has got to be one of the badass band names ever, even in the realm of death metal. The image the name conjures up alone is enough to send me into a bloodthirsty, maniacal, morbid glee. Okay maybe that's a bit of an exxageration, but the point is, Landmine Marathon is a pretty sweet band name. And they have one hell of an album cover as well. What a whacky Freakenstein pig-zombie they've got there.

Now it'd suck major donkey balls if Landmine Marathon's music didn't live up their kickass moniker, but fortunately it does. Death metal is the weapon of choice here. Crunching riffs atop pounding drums isn't anything new, no way on God's green on earth, but there's nothing wrong with brutality if it's done like this. Landmine Marathon do a pretty good job of balancing between brutality and melody. There are plenty of straight-up tremolo riffs-and-blasts stuff here as well as headbanging riffs and evil leads. The vocals are no slouch in comparison to the instrumental, and often come into the spotlight, like with "Xenocide" and its fierce vocal hooks. What's more impressive is the fact that these are vocals are delivered by a female and that despite the fact she looks like she's probably the friendliest, most soft-spoken person in the world, she can pull off some of the most throat-lacerating screams to ever shred your ears. Not to capitalize on the fact that their vocalist has an X chromosome, but damn, can she shriek.

Anyways, that will be enough from me. Enjoy the music and the album cover. Those fucking eyes man.

They just keep glaring at you.

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