### Rozenhill: King without domain

#### 07/08/09 || Khlysty

Have I ever told you how much I hate genre “revivals”? Oh, my repulsion towards this heinous act of music fuckery can only be compared with Kampfar’s general hatred towards mankind…and then some. See, I think that a “revival” is basically an extremely lame way of saying “Well, we got no ideas of our own, so let’s pillage the legacy of older bands and let’s say that we are ‘reviving’ said genre, because we are really cool and we ‘get’ this legacy”. Pure, unadulterated shit.

So, as you can easily understand, I really hate the nouveau thrash revival that seems to be taking metal world by force as of late. Thrash died an ugly death in the late ‘80s-early ‘90s, when death metal – and, probably, black metal – kicked the living shit out of it and proceeded to gang-rape it with a lot of sharp instruments. Of course, great thrash bands (Slayer, Anthrax, Megadeth, Exodus, Testament, Overkill, Kreator, et al) continued to produce material – sometimes stellar, sometimes good, sometimes excrecable -, but, see, those guys were there in the beginning. They defined thrash metal and their continuing existence was something to be expected. When I say that thrash died, I mean that the genre stopped producing new and exciting bands, ready to expand on the roots of what the thrashing, moshing forefathers had already established.

Anyway, nowadays you can’t throw a rock without hitting a new thrash band and almost everyone’s talking about thrash’s revival. Rozenhill from Sweden seem to belong to this new trend and with “King without Domain” they make their first recorded appearance in the world of metal. As far as I can tell, they seem to make some modernized modifications to the basic thrashing formula: more “meaty” and downtuned guitar sound, some death injections, some technicality, things like that. Also, they seem to prefer more compact song lengths (nothing lasts above 4:50 minutes), a decision that seems to keep redundancy away and make things more listenable and enjoyable. Because that’s exactly what I think “King without Domain” is: an enjoyable listen and nothing more.

The riffs are okay, without being anything spectacular or genre-defining. I don’t like the drum sound, which seems without heft and authority and, even though I tried to find it, I couldn’t discern the bass. The vocals is a mix of snarling, deep growling and clean, goth-like singing and I can tell you, I wasn’t this much impressed by them. The songwriting is pretty straightforward, without much twisting and turning and the soloing –a fucking trademark in thrash- is kept to a minimum. All in all, Rozenhill seem to be satisfied with moving within known parameters and doing it right, without ever trying to push the envelope or be radical or something like that. If I was to use one word to describe this record, “modest” is the first that comes in mind. So, in all modesty, Rozenhill gets a…

- Information
- Released: 2009
- Label: Noisehead Records
- Website: Rozenhill MySpace
- Band
- Pawel “Pabbo” Lugowski: vocals, guitar
- Mikko Mäkitalo: guitar
- Simon Hildén: vocals, bass
- Johan Berglund: drums

- Tracklist
- 01. Broken
- 02. Salvation
- 03. Well of Lies
- 04. Trying to run
- 05. Fog of War
- 06. Breath of Freedom
- 07. Lesson Learned
- 08. King Without Domain
- 09. Predator
- 10. Deadland