Hellspawn - Child of Hell

HELLSPAWN - Child of Hell (Exploratory Drilling - CD 2010)

It’s interesting that this album – from Polish Hellspawn, “Child of Hell” – recorded in 2008 and released in 2010 (by a small Polish / Irish label Exploratory Drilling) got such a bad promotion that I haven’t actually heard about it until only recently, when Hellspawn released their second full length “The Great Red Dragon”. To promote this new record the band gave quite few interviews and only then I’ve found out that they also released something like “Child of Hell” a couple of years earlier. But no wonder really that this album went by so unnoticed. Not only the label haven’t done absolutely anything to promote it, but also the CD is limited to 200 copies only, so really, there are not so many copies circulating around the underground. But I decided to contact the band and ask them whether they still have some copies left to sell and I was surprised when they told that they surely do… and more so, the price was equal to three beers hehe. So, I decided not to buy any beers, but spend this “fortune” on “Child of Hell”. Was it a good choice? Sure, it was. The album is quite good, but I also think it will become a nice rare item soon. So, I have a copy number 156 (its handnumbered, by the way) and I must that some of you may really like the way this CD was released. Actually more and more often I see so untypical ways of releasing CDs; not in the jewel case or digipacks, but for example in bigger cardboard cases or in the 7”EP size cover; labels like Old Temple or Proselytism do that and I always liked it… “Child of Hell” comes in a size similar to A5, in the cardboard cover. The layout may not be the most awesome of all I’ve ever seen, but surely it looks decent.

The album itself contains nine songs, all closed within 25 minutes, so the album is pretty short, but I think it’s perfect length for such intense and uncompromising dose of death metal; it would bore you to death if it was 40 or more minutes long. It’s mainly because all songs, which Hellspawn recorded here, are so damn similar to each other… The riffing and rhythms, especially those fast parts, they always sound very alike, so with 25 minutes of music it won’t make you sleep so much (I hope hehe). As I already wrote, this death metal is painfully intense and brutal (but not in the ultra extreme, American or Spanish brutal way… luckily, there are no dogs barking and pigs squealing hehe). Yeah, the fast tempos are in much advance here and maybe it’s a shame that the band doesn’t slow down more often, so their music would be even heavier and more massive, but if you like fast death metal, but played by rather simple riffing, something similar to the recent Deicide albums maybe, as well as Diabolic and Krisiun, then “Child of Hell” will be your thing. The material is not the most innovative, it also isn’t the most exciting and thrilling piece of death metal… it actually is pretty average, but somehow I enjoyed listening to it. There’s no shame for the band and for the underground standards I think they did a good job. Pity only that there’s no spark or something totally killer, what would put the world ablaze… maybe if the production was more energetic and aggressive then this material would sound better? Fuck that. “Child of Hell” is as it is and I can recommend it to all the underground collectors and death metal maniacs, who like more uncompromising forms of this music, but don’t expect another “Apocalyptic Revelation” from it.

Standout tracks: none of them really blew my mind exceptionally, but surely “Thou” and “The Contmaster” are the best here

Final rate: 70/100