French label Great Dane Records have come to notice a few times in the last couple of years and have done a decent job in getting some underground death metal bands some exposure and, true to form, they’ve done it again with this release from Finnish DM outfit Assatur.

Assatur have been around since 2011 and this tasty twelve track compilation basically covers their history thus far…. Which to be fair is two demos & four newer tracks recorded last year.

Coming across like an unholy mash up of Vomitory & Morbid Angel this is some interesting and addictive stuff and if you like your death metal, old school with some memorable hooks and groove then you won’t go far wrong with this release.

Tracks 1-4 are the newer tracks but for me the gems here are track 5 – 8 from the “The Gate” demo dating from 2015. “The Gate” itself is a really cool and original track and these tracks really highlight the talent and inventiveness of the band with “Ethereal Form” being a much slower, crushingly doomy track…. Kinda like “Scourge Of Iron” by Cannibal Corpse.

Tracks 9-12 are from the 2012 demo “From The Depths Of Madness” and have a much more Swedish feel to them reminding me of old Nihilist & Entombed with a filthier fuzzed up sound than the rest of the songs. Youthful exuberance shines forth here on tracks like “City Of Madness” & “Pit Of Despair” with a band brimming with ideas and squeezing as many into a track as possible without the song as a whole suffering.

This compilation is available as a limited to 500 hand numbered digipak ( I got # 496) and I’d urge you to pick it up if you want to hear something a little different in the death metal genre. Well recommended!

(8/10 Mark Eve)

https://www.facebook.com/assaturband

https://greatdanerecords.bandcamp.com/album/where-chaos-reigned