Review by Michael on April 2, 2024.

Polish death metal tanks Chainsword are back with their second album Born Triumphant to conquer the death metal throne. This is truly an ambitious goal, so we will see how they manage this plan.

Kicking off with some really casual Bolt Thrower riffs and some nasty vocals, 'Nekrodermis' peels off your skin and gives you a certain inner restlessness. At least if you don't like death metal. But if you're into bands with some really groovy but sick guitars you will feel very comfortable for sure. This one is a great one to start the album and set the bar pretty high for the upcoming 9 tracks. And with this the question if they are able to keep this quality during the whole album rises. Well, some other tracks like 'Abominable Intelligence' also spread the Bolt Thrower / Asphyx atmosphere that these two bands did back in perfection back in the 90s. Here are a lot of creeping riffs that meet some lethal blast beat parts and some very nice twists and turns. Especially my absolute favorite track 'Trident, Rise!' with this cool spoken intro (where I often think about the actual situation with the unpredictable terror regime in Russia) is a total homage to the aforementioned bands. This one is a kind of mid-tempo stomper with a lot of catchy parts and double-layered vocals. The guitar work is simple because of its repetitive character but also very effective to create a very vivid song. The same goes for 'Death To The Enemies Ov Man' where the guys agitate more brutal and fast. This song sounds pretty much like Vader when they released “The Ultimate Incantation” back in 1993. And with 'Ov Flesh And Steel' they even reanimated Bolt Thrower for sure. This one sounds so much like the Brits did on their swansong “Those Once Loyal” – I guess you could sell this one as a new Bolt Thrower song to people who don't know too much about that. Just like I told somebody back in 1996 “None Shall Defy” by Infernäl Mäjesty was the new Slayer song. Okay, that was mean but also pretty funny. But in some songs, there are also flaws to find. Let's start with the vocals. In general, I like the growling and also the sort of demonical vocals but just take a song like 'Sinistramanus Terebrae'. Okay, the growling here is fine but these vocals that sound like they were performed when Herr Brummbär was severely tortured somehow don't really fit into this song. Don't get me wrong, the rest of the song is okay, but this sounds a little bit exhausting in my ears. The other issue I have is that the songs sometimes sound kind of uninspired. 'Grand Funeral Pyre' is a good example of that. This one is a mixture of some more death-doom stuff and suddenly they start playing some punk. And again, the high-pitched vocals don't match this song. This all sounds like they started pretty ambitious but somehow lost their track while writing this song.

Please, don't get me wrong. I don't want to say that Born Triumphant is a bad album. Only some aspects might have been a little bit more sophisticated. Compared to the debut, they have more technical aspects incorporated, a lot more guitar solos and also different vocals. This is fine but sometimes less is more. And if they follow this rule, they won't be just in the front trench of death metal but maybe on the throne.

Rating: 8.0 out of 10