HATECRAFT

What a beauty!!! The cover art is absolutely mesmerizing. It was clearly crafted with considerable knowledge of modern hypnotic technologies and zombification practices. Why??? To entrance independent reviewers and compel them to give HATECRAFT high marks! And indeed, I can already feel something foreign penetrating my consciousness, reshaping my cognitive gears, rebooting and running everything its own way... Nightmare!!! Tell me, how could someone who gets hiccups at the mere mention of "Swedish death" possibly enjoy THIS -- by definition formulaic, utterly unoriginal stuff, forged in a home studio somewhere in Ryazan??? Nonsense! And yet... I must say, HATECRAFT have pleasantly surprised with their atmospheric brand of heaviness. They're practically BETRAY MY SECRETS (those who've heard them will find plenty in common), and that's worth a lot. The guys don't rush things -- unhurried herds of beautiful melodies roam across the expanses of "Finally Free," and sometimes (as in "The End Is Just A Beginning") the band delivers a gorgeous refrain. The album's main flaw is the wandering, song-to-song inconsistent sound -- at times it's thin and rough-hewn, and then suddenly it hits with armored (read: Finnvox-like) power... You just sit there fiddling with your equalizer. One can't help but touch upon the eternal sore spot of domestic bands -- clean vocals tinged with a provincial accent. As the great Lenin used to say: "One must work on one's pronunciation." But otherwise -- a worthy debut. Fix the shortcomings, add some originality in the best sense -- and it's ready to serve.