Coldworker
The Contaminated Void

In January 2006, a few months after the unfortunate, forced breakup of Nasum, drummer Anders Jakobson posted an announcement on his blog seeking musicians to form a new band. In a short time, the lineup assembled by the drummer, essentially a quintet of young musicians active in local bands, began writing their first pieces, emphasizing a technical death metal with grindcore influences (in fact, Jakobson's original idea was precisely to form a band of this genre, a sort of ideal continuation of Nasum's work).

By June, less than three months after the entrance of the band's last member, vocalist Joel Fornbrant, the five entered the recording studio to produce "The Contaminated Void," demonstrating excellent internal cohesion and great productivity. However, despite being well-crafted, the work suffers from the band's youthfulness, failing to achieve (at least within its genre) the excellence it might have reached if crafted with more patience.

In this regard, the album's flaws can be essentially summarized into two types: first, guitarist André Alvinzi's solos sometimes seem forcibly inserted into the song structures (the most glaring example being "D.E.A.D."), almost as if to showcase the guitarist's technical skills at any cost, even if it means sacrificing the piece's immediacy.
Secondly, the voice, undeniably powerful and distinctive, sometimes appears monotonous in its continuous growl; it would have been better to pair it, at least in some cases, with a secondary scream voice, also to better highlight Fornbrant's abilities. This is evidenced in the concluding part of "Antidote", not coincidentally one of the album's most successful tracks, where there's a (unfortunately brief) hint of a secondary voice.
Among the best compositions, we find the excellent "An Unforgiving Season" with its obsessive riff, the title track with its occasionally syncopated vocals, and "Waiting for Buildings to Collapse", perhaps the closest track to Nasum's grind: not coincidentally, it's the only piece entirely written by Anders Jakobson; in any case, apart from the flaws listed above, all tracks reach a good general quality.

Excellent production characterized by remarkable clarity (indeed, quite common in recent years' extreme offerings) and sound power, with notable and stunning internal graphics.

A promising debut, especially considering the brief production time; if in their future works the five Swedes manage to correct the flaws, largely due to the enthusiasm with which they immediately started working after forming the group, they will likely become one of the best bands in recent years, at least in the realm of extreme music.