Paganizer - Murder Death Kill

PAGANIZER - Murder Death Kill (XTREEM Music CD 2003)

When “Murder Death Kill” was released, this album was like a damn awesome feast of traditional, Swedish sounding death metal. Back then (it was released in 2003) not many bands or fans were really interested in this style of music, especially when compared to what’s going on these days. So this also why we loved all these new bands like Kaamos, Repugnant, Eviscerated, Necrovation, Nominon, Revokation, Verminous, Delve, Karnarium and so on. And Paganizer was like a brutal assault of great Swedish death metal riffage that ripped all the guts out. I received this album as a promo and loved it since the first listen. And this is also how I found out about Rogga Johansson and many of his death metal projects. Nowadays I have quite huge collection of his music, with many Paganizer albums and splits or other shit – and this band is surely my favourite from all Rogga’s projects. And well, I can honestly say that this band had its ups and downs, not all releases are that good, but most of them is damn solid and great. But I still enjoy the early albums the most and “Murder Death Kill” is probably my favourite along “Divine Rapture”.

Every time I play “Murder Death Kill” it’s like a pure joy and excitement. What I like about Paganizer  is that it’s straight up death metal, with no bullshit. Their music is aggressive and heavy, it’s also fast and groovy – it all just depending what song we’re talking about. It’s nothing like the melodic or atmospheric death metal, and damn, you can be surprised sometimes how fast this album is. Paganizer took a lot of influences from bands like (old) Entombed, Grave or Unleashed, but played their shit in way faster and more aggressive manner. The result is still superb. I love their riffs and the fact that they’re quite simple, not super technical or whatever. This is why every song is so easily listenable and the music is just memorable and catchy, but in brutal death metal standards, of course haha! There’s almost a crust feeling, grind core’ish simplicity and straight forwardness sometimes, so you can prepare your neck for a killing pain, which you will suffer after some maniac headbanging sessions with this album. And did I mention killer, deep vocals of Rogga and super awesome production from Mieszko Talarczyk?? In almost every aspect “Murder Death Kill” is great and there’s only one song (“Du vaknar som död”), which doesn’t do me any damage. But such “Meateater”, “Bleed Unto Me” or “Dead  Souls” are excellent and I am sure that

Standout tracks: “Meateater”, “Bleed Unto Me”

Final rate: 75/100