Procreation - Ghostwood

PROCREATION - Ghostwood (Self financed CD 1014)

Procreation is a new band (formed in 2012) from Zwolle in Holland, but it features for example Ronald Louwsma, who had a short episode in classic death / doom act Beyond Belief (among others). And “Ghostwood” is Procreation’s first recording, released on nice, self financed digipack CD. And well… I don’t know if you’re in a mood for another death metal band, but if you are then check it out, as it’s quite solid and worthy piece of music.

Obviously Procreation doesn’t create anything original, their music is also far from being utterly brilliant and for sure it’s also not the best debut of recent years. But it’s good enough to give it some listens and enjoy some nice tunes. The band is quite old school rooted, I think that stylistically they take some influence from such bands like Bolt Thrower, Morgoth, Pestilence, Vader… also I must say that the vocalist sounds quite like a mixture of Marc Grewe with Peter Wiwczarek. And yeah, solid and decent death metal, with quite melodic touch here and there, some blasting parts also, but mostly it’s mid paced, groovy stuff to bang the head and enjoy the aggression.  It’s quite diverse, nicely arranged… uh, just listen to the title track, with its more melodic parts and some nice guitar leads, which are even thrash metal rooted; not to mention that blasting part, which sounds almost like a black metal bit. But obviously I prefer the harsher and more aggressive side of Procreation music, so songs like “Killing Culture”, “Can’t Stop the Bleeding” and “The Frenzy Is Tideless” are my favourites here. I also must mention “The Cycle in Black”, which is like Hail of Bullets with some thrashy stuff here and there. Awesome song. Damn, all are good, in my opinion.

So, good start from Procreation. Surely the band did good work on “Ghostwood”, so I do wish all the best to them and will keep my eyes open for their future

Standout tracks: “Ghostwood”, “Killing Culture”, “The Frenzy is Tideless”, “The Cycle in Black”

Final rate: 68/100