Centurion: Serve No One (2012)

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With all the Polish death metal bands reviewed on this site lately, it's easy to lump another one into the "sounds just like Vader and Behemoth" pile. It's actually refreshing to lump one into a different pile of bands.

Centurion is a Polish death metal band out of Warsaw. They just released their second full-length this year, Serve No One, a decade after their debut. Instead of being Vader sound-alikes, they ape Suffocation's brutal-technical approach. And they play it well, with their modern production sounding akin to the New York band's more recent work. Since they copy Suffocation, and capably, they're awesome. No question of that.


But how awesome are they? Well, they tend to fall into the trap that most brutal death metal falls into. It sounds awesome, for every second of the runtime, but you can't really tell one song from another. It seems counter-intuitive that something that sounds so full of energy and excitement could be dull, but that's where it ends up.

Do I mind listening to it? Not at all. But after two or three tracks, it fades into the background.



The Verdict: Serve No One is a very solid brutal death metal release. That's all it wants to be, and in that sense it's a success. But for those of you looking for something a little bit more, look elsewhere. I give it 3 out of 5 stars.

Wydawnictwo Muzyczne Psycho