Kommand - Death Age Review

Death Age is the second full length album by primitive, dusty death metal band Kommand from California, after a rather well-received debut in 2020 named Terrorscape. Its band members are involved in various underground metal / hardcore / d-beat bands in the area, but under this moniker a clearer approach is taken, even though such elements sometimes make an appearance as well. 

This follow-up record has the same, stripped down and down tuned character of the first release, but maybe with a less surrounding sound and generally thinner production, which makes Death Age easy to listen to on one side, but not so complicated to be fully engaged on the other side. The album’s duration remains at the lower end of the scale, clocking up to 26 minutes with 6 tracks, and all of them feature very distinct, familiar elements: clogged, hefty riffing, cavernous vocals with an ounce of reverb and a tempo dance between fast paced death metal and middle paced groove fiestas. 

There’s not a lot of moments in Death Age that would make it stand out, but most parts are properly written just enough to not discard the record, and it contains a certain level of rawness and heaviness that would appeal to fans that dislike works that are too polished. The one-dimensional production doesn’t give justice to the already average instrumentation, making a lot of the riff-driven parts of the record feel quite empty and  the whole outcome slightly unstable and not efficient enough, in general terms but as well as compared to Kommand’s generally more detectable first release. 

“Fleeing Western Territories” is one highlight that stands out as it maintains some compositional coherence, as well as the closing piece “Collapse Metropolis” and some moments in “Final Virus”. Yet, in other sections like the slow-moving “Global Death” or “Polar Holdout”, things are pretty standard, or to put it better, substandard. 

Death Age somehow barely floats after its conclusion, however it doesn’t have something that would keep the listener hooked or to remember to come back to Death Age later, without just thinking that Terrorscape was simply better. For death metal, it at least has the ugliness and some partial brutality, yet it lacks the merit. I would not discourage someone to listen to it, but there’s better fruits on the market for you. Pick a couple of tracks that you like from here, and move on to the next chapter of your playlist.

Out on March 31st, 2023 | 20 Buck Spin

DAMAGE: 2.5/5 [Average]