Calm Hatchery - Sacrilege of Humanity

Polish death metal doesn’t exactly have a sound that you can make synonymous with the country like you can with Swedish death metal or German thrash, but you definitely know it when you hear it and Calm Hatchery absolutely sounds Polish.  The more well-known death metal bands from that country all seem to have a few things in common; mainly very precise and tight production while still remaining brutal and highly aggressive.  Calm Hatchery are borrowing influences from a number of their peers and while a Swedish band could probably get away with just “sounding Swedish,” I don’t think “sounding Polish” will win them over with too many people.  That’s not to say that there’s anything wrong with that, it just has a different effect when said aloud.

The first thing you’ll notice about Calm Hatchery if you’ve spent any amount of time listening to death metal over the past five or six years is their unmistakable likeness to Decapitated, at least prior to Organic Hallucinosis.  Very tight drumming, brutal yet decipherable growls and pristine production with some short technical guitar licks thrown in here and there.  In fact, the track “We are the Universe” lifts a well-known riff segment right from Decapitated’s “Spheres of Madness” and considering that Decapitated will already be on your mind while listening to Calm Hatchery’s second full-length album, Sacrilege of Humanity, I’m not sure what to think.  Are they paying homage to them by making it so blatant or did they not think anyone would notice?  All of it is a little too coincidental.  The subtle middle-eastern theme to a sparse amount of riffs found throughout Sacrilege of Humanity points ever so slightly in Behemoth’s direction.  There are also a large amount of spacey solos which scream Trey Azagthoth to the point of aping him.  I know that Morbid Angel isn’t Polish and that doesn’t add to my point that Calm Hatchery is definitively a “Polish death metal band,” but it points toward a building case that Calm Hatchery is frighteningly close to being a “Frankenstein” of a death metal band having so many obvious parts of other bands put together.  And just to point out, the Azagthoth-style solos only work about half of the time on Sacrilege of Humanity.  Quite a few times, they ramble on and don’t follow the song, but other times they’re very good.  I don’t think it’s a matter of being out of place but more that the guitarist just isn’t anywhere near as good as Trey.

Despite my complaints, Sacrilege of Humanity is a damn solid album that any fan of Decapitated or even Yattering will absolutely love.  If you like your death metal to carve with a surgeon’s precision and be equally as clean as his utensils of dissection, then Calm Hatchery should be on your short list of bands to check out.  There’s definitely nothing new here, not unlike most death metal these days of course, but there’s a possibility that the overt resemblance to a certain band might rub a few people the wrong way.  Or maybe not.  You decide.

Release Date: November 15th, 2010
Label: Selfmadegod Records

TRACK LISTING

1.  Rattlesnake's Dream
2.  Sea of Truth
3.  Messerschmitt
4.  We Are the Universe
5.  Mirror Giants
6.  Hymn of the Forgotten
7.  Them
8.  Lost in the Sands
9.  Those Who Were
10.  Shine for the Chosen One
11.  The Blood of Stalingrad

Total playing time:  36:59

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*Comments:

Reviewer: Jesse

February 26, 2011