What first strikes the listener is the band's firm grasp of the death metal aesthetic. Incredibly tight riffing that never gets too repetitive and a fittingly solid blast beat performance from the drummer help to maintain a nice pace on a short but sweet 35 minute album. A gloomy, atmospheric 14 second introduction sets an eerie mood for the listener until the first track, "The Massacre ov the Innocents," really starts to kick in, delivering a healthy punch aided by a fittingly dirty production. Guitarists Jan and Lukasz (the latter also serving as the group's growler) create pure mayhem courtesy of their respective axes. The sound isn't overly brutal, but it is certainly relentless. Any brutality left unexplored by guitar is made up for by Lukasz's low growls, that, although not entirely original, work in tandem with the constant, heavy riffs. There's a solo somewhere around the 2:30 mark worthy of some praise, as there's a lot of technique and personal flavor within the solo's thirty or so seconds.

Picking any particular tracks as exceptional is beyond difficult in respect to this release as this is really death metal by numbers. However, of note is "Conflagration," where the group finds itself taking a more risky, plodding approach to tone that works, at least for me, and track 5, "Ground Devoured by Dusk," which is perhaps my favorite track on the album, sounding a bit like a mirror copy of any one of the tracks taken from countrymate Behemoth's latest release, "Demigod, and yes, that is a compliment.

Preludium possesses a lot of potential that will, with any luck, only grow with age. While it must be hard to stand out in a death metal community bleeding as much talent as Poland, Preludium manages to at least demand some attention. Vader and Behemoth are hardly its peers yet, but give the band another release or two, and perhaps better production, and I think Preludium will manage to fine-tune issues with instrumental diversity and record a few classics of its own.

written by Chris Chellis

Playing time: 34.40