Swedish bruisers Death Reich have already announced themselves via a clutch of EPs and singles over the last couple of years, most notable of which was probably 2021’s Death Camp. That release featured a madcap, deathened take on Metallica‘s Fight Fire With Fire, which might offer a few clues as to what you might find on their debut full-length offering, Disharmony.

By which I mean they love a bit of thrash in the Death Reich camp, and that genre’s influences run through the album like an ever flowing stream. However the overall feel of Disharmony is still that of a particularly virulent Swedish dödsmetall album, with all that that might suggest. Best track Oblivion sees the band compressing every last ounce of inspiration into a raging piece of mayhemic destruction that sledgehammers the senses in a two-minute-forty-eight-second slice of absolute madness. Fall Of Kings is almost as good, with Robert Babic and Christer Bergqvist running riot with some frankly unhinged guitar battery.

But for all the finesse – and I’m using that word advisedly – that the two axemen bring, it’s the sheer nihilistic barbarity of Johnny Letho (Johnny Lethal, surely? – Ed) that grabs the listener by the scruff of the ears first off – and my word he doesn’t let go for a second. Blessed with a paint-stripping voice, he’s clearly a perfect fit for this band, but the man’s brutality is leavened by the fact that no matter how far into the gutter he descends – and that’s pretty far – you can always hear what he’s singing about, giving the lyrics maximum impact and enabling them to go toe-to-toe with those six strings and the apocalyptic barrage of drummer Jonas Blom and bassist Robert Axelsson. When the band spreads it’s wings and really explores it’s capabilities, as it it does on longest track Atrocity, the listener is party To just how much potential there is here going forward.

In 2023 it’s increasingly hard to bring anything new to a ‘death metal review’; the field is a large one, and originality is often at a premium. And, whilst Death Reich don’t really threaten to widen the envelope of what death metal might mean with this album, they attack the task at hand with so much vigour it might just wake a few sleeping souls up and encourage them to approach their own work with as much vitality as these blokes. Exciting times await, surely!

Disharmony releases on March 17th.