CoC : Indungeon - Machinegunnery of Doom : Review

Indungeon - _Machinegunnery of Doom_
(Full Moon Productions, 1998)
by: Drew Snow (7.5 out of 10)

I think we should just start with some sort of "assumed retro" rule around here: unless stated otherwise in the first two lines of a review, all albums reviewed from a certain few labels (you should know which) should be assumed to be retro. On a tangent here, if this continues, will their really even -be- a "retro" sound anymore? Won't the sound have become so predominant as to become current as well? Anyway, that said, Indungeon is another in the seemingly unending stream of 80s retro releases, and is pretty good at sewing together very thrash-oriented songs with black vocals and all around competent playing, better than a lot of the other completely crap releases of late. The album, from what I've gathered thus far, follows an innovative "war" theme, and the complex plot is integrated into such songs as "Mayhemic Destruction" (someone give these bands a thesaurus, -please-) and more than just assonant "Desolation Creation". As mentioned, the album actually -is- a cut above the rest, as at least this band recycled -good- riffs from the 80s, and the guitars have a great raw, sharp sound, complemented nicely by vocals of the same nature and production. The songs are fairly basic exercises in thrash; the only thing that'll catch you off guard is the occasional explosion thrown into the middle of a song for good measure. So, _MoD_ is a good, worthwhile album, but is that really enough to truly separate it from any of the others?

(article published 10/3/1998)