Dan Vs. ‘III The Rommel Chronicles’ by Hail of Bullets.

Hail of Bullets combines a love for war history and old school Death metal in the vein of British metal stalwarts Bolt thrower.

Hail of Bullets continues this artistic direction with III: The Rommel Chronicles, the bands third effort since forming in 2006.

Hail of bullets isn’t a band that wastes a lot of time with technicality, or complicated song structures. Their approach to crafting songs is all very straight forward. All of the typical extreme metal techniques are present here: Tremolo picking, chugging palm muted riffs, de-tuned gallops played staccato, shreddy guitar solo’s etc. But it’s rarely combined with hyper speed note changes, complex timing and technical technique transition. This might make it seem like I am painting a dull picture; that in its simplicity this album is boring. But, this not at all true. If anything III: The Rommel Chronicles excels in its simplicity and proves that you don’t need to always rely on that sort of thing to be interesting.

Case in point: The song DG-7 has sections where one of the guitars is playing a simple chord progression while the second guitar is chugging on a base note at a steady pace. This then transitions into a fast tremolo picked rhythm guitar section with a wailing shred guitar solo over the top. These parts while not outstanding on their own, come together in a layered fashion that makes for an effective performance. Other songs give a small nod to Swedish Death Metal bands like Entombed, with fast gritty death punk chords.

All of this fits the exact same blue print that the bands previous albums follow. While more of the same can be considered a good thing in this style of music, the songs here sound just on the edge of being tired. Therefore, my overall enjoyment of this album loses a few points.