Indungeon - The Misanthropocalypse (1999)

Indungeon must have come to the same conclusion about their debut Machinegunnery of Doom that I did 25 years after the fact, because their sophomore effort The Misanthropocalypse is instantly more explosive and exciting than what they were writing just a few years prior. Now, they might not have really settled on a real direction yet, having just slapped it all together as a project, and the shift in quality here does come at the potential expensive that this could be considered a lot more trendy and 'current' with the melodeath explosion of the later 90s. With bands like Darkane and Soilwork releasing great statements in the wake of At the Gates, this group wasn't to be left too far behind, and thus there is very little sense of being deliberately old school as they were with Machinegunnery.

You might have encountered this album if you were digging deeper into the 'melodeath' of the era, or possibly the melodic Swedish black metal stuff like Dissection and Sacramentum, and that's exactly the crowd it would appear to. Workmanlike, but fast and involved melodic rhythms twisting about the shuffle of upbeat drumming, with the snarled, tortured vocals spilling all over it like fleshy entrails being torn from the carapace of some robot or Space Marine's armor. Yes, at its foundations you still have the 80s thrash influences, like most of this style, I can hear a little Slayer at the onset of "Sentenced to the Flames", for instance, but this one's meant for the brawling, boisterous weekend clubs where the band would presumably open up or interact with some of those bigger names in melodic death metal that were exploding all around the world, beyond just the Swedish scene. To that end, it's competitive, convulsing with energy, gang shouts and riffs that never suck even if they don't swindle their way straight into your memory.

It's furious, frenetic, and makes the debut sound like the tanks on its cover slowly treading along and taking heavy fire. The leads are serviceable, but there aren't enough of them and they don't stand out against the more brazen rhythm guitars crashing about the record's atmosphere. There's also a little bit of a bluesy flair that occasionally pops up like some of the licks in "Battletank No. II" that sound a fraction out of place and make The Misanthropocalypse sound more like a party than you'd hope. But considering that this would prove the project's swan song, you might as well go all out and bring your best Jimi Hendrix with the Bolt Thrower-meets-Nocturnus cover artwork. There is nothing really exceptional about the album, but if you're craving lost underground gems from this style and/or period, or you're a fan of perusing the good old Invasion Records roster (as I am), this one can still be a decent use of 35 minutes.

Verdict: Win [7/10]

Indungeon - Machinegunnery of Doom (1997)

Indungeon seems like it had the potential to be the sickest thing ever. A cool portmanteau band moniker. A clear nod to Warhammer 40K or some other sci-fi wargaming with a cover that belonged on a Bolt Thrower demo. The album title Machinegunnery of Doom, just how awesome is that? Then you look through the band's lineup and it's essentially a who's who of the Swedish underground, members of Indungeon had been involved with or would LATER be involved with Falconer, Thy Primordial, Vanhelgd, King of Asgard, Mithotyn, and Lucifer. This album also came around when bands were first starting to fish around in that retro territory with regards to blending vintage speed, thrash, death and black metal together much like their influences did during the Dawn of Time (otherwise known as the 80s). Sweden was ahead of the game in that regard, Bewitched being a prime example.

So with all that going for it, I am sad to say that Machinegunnery of Doom doesn't quite live up to all the expectations it created. It's competent enough, don't get me wrong, and has a well balanced production that lets all of its instruments and aesthetics shine, but it's absolutely the sort of metal import you'll bang your head along to a few times, appreciate the sincerity and execution, and then forget within a few moments, aside from perhaps the superficial details above. They basically play thrash metal from both the Slayer-ific and Teutonic schools, but it's very often meted out at a moderate pace and lacks many truly explosive or exciting moments. It might be that they were trying to give the material a more melodic, epic feel, almost as if Sodom around 1987 was dabbling around more with some NWOBHM influences like Iron Maiden, and it does actually pull that off, but the issue is that the riffs just don't really stick, and the nasty, gnarly rasped vocals, which are well-suited to a black/thrash or death/thrash outing, can't overcome the lukewarm songwriting.

I don't mean to bash on the thing, because again, it's got some solid production values, and if you were merely looking for some authentic blend of these seminal sounds, it's decent enough to spin in the background, but compared to something like Bewitched or the first two Witchery albums, both of which fall within the same mortar-shell scarred ballpark as this, the tunes come up short, like a bunch of average riffs strung together just to have another side project. There's a little bit of variation, with some slower grooving heavy metal tunes on there ("Desolate Creation"), but in either case it's just never all that heavy or aggressive or exciting, just competent to showcase the obvious proficiency of its constituents. Kind of a lost relic on the Full Moon Productions imprint, but they'll get another chance.

Verdict: Indifference [6.25/10]