Otto Kinzel contacted me and offered Markradonn's latest EP for review. I immediately jumped at this opportunity. Bluntface Records always have cutting edge music that at times defies genre classification and never disappoints. Anyone familiar with Virus Cycle and Otto's solo album, "We Are All Doomed: The Zodiac Killer", understands this.

Markradonn is a band that defies classification too.  The band calls its music Experimental Death Metal. This seems good to me. The music also contains elements of Thrash, Black, Power and Speed Metal.

What do you think about when you consider Metal music instruments? I pretty much think of guitars, bass, drums and sometimes keyboards. Markradonn have three of the above, but utilizes lesser considered musical instruments such as trombones, french  horns, euphonium, trumpet, timpani and a didgeridoo as well. The mix of these various instruments creates a beautiful symphonic sound of Metal.

Listening to the five tracks on this EP brings, to my imagination, images of epical Cinemascope movies of clashing empires. I see an entourage of ambassadors and their accompanying hordes of assistants, slaves and military escorts entering the huge cities and courts of stone in some forgotten desert lands. The pounding of processional drums, long lines of royal trumpeters announcing the arrival of a surrendering king, or a bride for the emperor to seal an alliance between two kingdoms. Or a scene of trudging slaves, their backs bent with heavy loads, mile after mile of them, all singing in unison their song of drudgery and toil, doomed to a short life followed by a miserable death in chains.

"Frenzied Winter Sorrow" utilizes more complicated drumming and percussion instruments than the first three songs. And there are fits of energetic speed guitar work that made my fingers tired just imagining myself attempting to keep up with the speed demon on guitar.

"Cathartic Spiritual Purgation" was by far my favorite tune on this EP. The drumming recalls to mind scenes of tropical tribal fires surrounded by writhing dancers, their twisted and flashing shadows cast upon surrounding huts. The tribal rhythm is mixed with the exciting growl of electric guitar, out of place in a jungle scene, but somehow just the right mixture to let me see that Tahiti meets Tampa would be a fine place to be. And this song stopped abruptly just like this review.