Britain's Annotations Of An Autopsy are back with their sequel to Before The Throne Of Infection, this one titled The Reign of Darkness, their first for heavyweights Nuclear Blast Records. If you were a fan of their strong debut, you'll no doubt find plenty to enjoy here, as the band pick things up right where they left off. One quick look at the great cover art and you instantly know what you are in store for; brutal & technical death metal. Churning, pummeling riffage and jackhammer blast beats fly around the mix on the crushing "Bone Crown" and the relentless "In Snakes I Bathe" (great title!), leaving plenty of room for Steve Regan's combination of lethal growls, grunts, roars, and screams. Though some might say that there's not a ton of originality here, the band can whip up quite the smoldering pot 'o tech-death, much like acts such as Cannibal Corpse, Decrepit Birth, Hate Eternal (Erik Rutan makes a guest vocal appearance here on one tune and mixed the album), Spawn of Possession, or Immolation. There's really no weak tracks here, with the highlights being the longer, more epic sounding numbers like "Catastrophic Hybridization" and "Into the Black Slumber", each containing some postively massive and pulverizing riffs, and the slower, death-sludge tracks "Impale the Sun" and "Cryogenica", where the band are really locked in and giving off a ferocious aura.
There's really a lot to like here, so chances are if you are a fan of the bands mentioned above, there's no reason why you shouldn't get your freak on with these intense UK technical death metal upstarts.
Track Listing
01. And So It Begins...
02. In Snakes I Bathe
03. Born Dead
04. Bone Crown [feat. Erik Rutan]
05. Emptiness
06. Catastrophic Hybridization
07. VII: The Horror, The Destruction...
08. Impale The Sun
09. Portrait Of Souls
10. Cryogenica
11. Into The Black Slumber
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