Dethklok – Dethalbum III

Dethklok is the brainchild of Brendon Small and Tommy Blacha and is both a fictional band featured in the Adult Swim animated program Metalocalypse, as well as a real band created to perform the band’s music in studio and live. They have toured with many great bands, their first album ‘Dethalbum’ reached at number 21 on Billboard Magazine’s Top 200 list and through the cartoon they managed to initiate new people to death metal music, a genre that was unknown to them till then. The band’s third album is called ‘Dethalbum III’ following the same name pattern as the two past two album and it’s an excerption of songs featured on Metalocalypse worked properly to fit in the new album.

The album contains melodic death metal at its finest, with some cool and technical riffing. The album kicks off with ‘I Ejaculate Fire’ where you can hear some great riffs and melodies that Dethklok and particularly Brendon Small is known for. Some fine guitar solos were laid down as well as in the whole album. Same thing goes for songs like ‘Crush The Industry’ and ‘Andromeda’ that follow the same recipe. Aggression is the main feeling you get from Brendon Small’s or may I say Nathan Explosion’s ripping vocals that also plays the keyboards and has written all the music and lyrics as well. The sound of the album is killer due the amazing production of Brendan Small and Ulrich Wild did. It’s a fact that you can find many great songs throughout the album. Songs like ‘Starved’ that have a more groovy approach or ‘Killstardo Abominate’ that has some cool death metal blast beats. Gene Hoglan, one of the best drummers in the metal world, as always has played some of the best drum parts ever that fit like a glove with the bass parts that Bryan Beller played and overall sound of the band.

Dethklok in the new album focus more in melodies than the death metal sound of the two previous albums. You can hear the long leads and melodies in songs like ‘Skyhunter’ or ‘Impeach God’. If you leave out the lyrics the music reminds me a lot of Sweden’s Amon Amarth and especially their latest work, so everyone who is in this kind of music and doesn’t already know them should definitely check them out. ‘Ghostqueen’ and ‘Galaxy’ are my favourite songs and I could say that are the highlights of the album along with ‘I Ejaculate Fire’. ‘Biological Warfare’ in my opinion is the song with the best guitar solo, where Brendon Small shows some of his excellent guitar skills. ‘The Hammer’ is mid-tempo song with stiff riffing while ‘Rejoin’ kicks up the speed a little maintaining all the good elements you hear in every second of ‘Dethalbum III’, leaving you with a taste of wanting more as the album closes.

12 incredible tracks, 51 minutes and 12 seconds show the musicality of Dethklok. If you have doubts about whether they are a real or a cartoon band i can assure you that they have nothing to envy than most of the present melodic death metal bands, and have even created their own style genre.