Band:	Kommand
Album:	Death Age
Style:	Death metal
Release date:	March 2023

01. Final Virus
02. Chimera Soldiers
03. Global Death
04. Polar Holdout
05. Fleeing Western Territories
06. Collapse Metropolis

If you were looking for the next Bolt Thrower, and perhaps thought Memoriam was the answer, then I Kommand you comrades to think again.

So, here we have Kommand, who are the U.S. equivalent to Bolt Thrower (in theory anyway). This means a preferably plain and simple, no-nonsense, old-school approach to death metal, rather than a technical and overly complex style, with a simplistic, groovy structure driven by an all-important, seriously meaty tone. Add the inspiring lyrical war themes, the demanding presence of vocalist Jesse Sanes with his echoing, Karl Willetts-like, menacing, brutal growls, and the rolling thunderous drumming. This along with the heavy, rumbling bass, by which you get the sound of the vibrations of an enemy tank approaching; there you have your Bolt Thrower infrastructure. Amazingly, all of this is crammed onto one short-ass, but highly impactful, 26-minute album titled Death Age.

So, you have your Bolt Thrower sound, however, Kommand are a long way off in the songwriting department. Not like that should come as a total surprise, though; many acts don't necessarily live up to the quality of their influences. What is worth taking note of, though, is the riff quality, which is performed to a high standard. In each track, from beginning to end, the riffs have no shortage of groove and melody. Take the track “Global Death” for instance; the opening riff sounds as if it was taken directly from the pages of Bolt Thrower's The IVth Crusade's book. The riffs go from skull splittingly heavy mid-tempo slogs, with striking headbanging melodies, to up-tempo ferocious tremolo bombardment. The tempo increase is most noticeable on the tracks “Polar Out”, and especially “Fleeing Western Territories”, in which is the most variety of tempo changes.

The downtempo plods on the penultimate track “Collapse Metropolis”, however, seem to be a prime example of the band running out of steam. Throughout the album there are several moments of which the slower, doomier parts just lack the overall excitement and inspiration, in what is otherwise a very good album indeed. Sadly, Death Age doesn't quite keep the flowing momentum from its highly promising beginning by the end.

So in conclusion, if you want to listen to some solid OSDM, with the war themes and groove of Bolt Thrower, then go and listen to Bolt Thrower. Otherwise, Kommand is your next best thing, and a reasonable alternative, I would say.