Chaosbreed is a (if you'll permit me) super group from Finland consisting of Esa Holopanien (Amorphis) and Marko Tarvonen (Moonsorrow) on guitar, Oppu Laine (ex-Amorphis, Mannhai) on bass, Nalle Österman (Gandalf) on drums and Taneli Jarva (ex-Sentenced, The Black League) behind the mic. With an impressive line-up such as this, you would be hard pressed to assume that the final product would suck, which it does not. However, unlike other super groups of late like Nightrage, Avantasia and Dream Evil among others, the project is not blessed with creativity or originality. The main influences seem to be Slayer and hardcore punk with slight touches of death metal thrown in.

Jarva's vocals are somewhat ridiculous on this album. His vocals sound more like words trying to be spoken while vomiting instead of growling. During several songs he randomly moans, laughs and yells for no apparent reason and this adds nothing to the recording. They could have put some more effort into recording this aspect. It sounds as if they were just thrown in there with one take. While that may be the intended effect, it really detracts from the music. The music is nothing new. If you are expecting to hear something new and refreshing, skip this one. It is all textbook Slayer and hardcore riffs and drumming. Aside from some blast beats here and there and a couple of slow passages and tracks, this is a simplistic riff-a-thon that Slayer and Hatebreed fans alike will enjoy. As a side project from all of these bands, I could see why they would have wanted to try their hands at this sort of music. Instead of opting for the intense and meticulous production of their main bands, this music is an outlet for aggression with little focus on songwriting. The guitar tone gets monotonous after a while and could have been tweaked a little more so it is not the same chainsawing for the duration of the album. The crunch is appreciated on the slower songs but the sound could use a little scrubbing here and there.

Some tracks are more memorable than others are. "Symptoms of the Flesh" has some of less distracting vocal work on the album and some interesting guitar soloing. "Casket Ride" has hysterical lyrics and a textbook hardcore breakdown. It also has the same wind sound effect that the program FlashFXP plays when it finishes downloading a file for some reason as well. Then comes a lesson in plagiarism 101. The opening of "Faces of Death" is such a close imitation of "South of Heaven," it's sickening. It is not even remotely disguised. Instead of a blatant rip off, why not just cover the song? It is one thing to show influence for a band but copying is something that I cannot tolerate or condone in what is supposed to be original music. "Demon Skunk" starts off with a bong hit and is about smoking weed in hell. How original. Lyrics like "We got the stuff to expand your mind / This shit is gonna blow your mind," do nothing for me and this song could easily have been omitted from the album and it would have been vastly improved. I mean, come on, they're rhyming mind with mind!

This one hits and misses. It has ups and downs. Diehard fans of Slayer and hardcore will probably like this one a lot more than I.