While a lot of focus is often on Florida as a death metal Mecca, by 1990, the star was well and truly over Sweden as the Scandinavian country cast its death metal dice onto the table. One bad who made their mark on the scene were Centinex and this year has the Swedes returning with ‘The Pestilence’, their latest EP.
By now, Centinex are hardly going to surprise us and do something out of the ordinary, but that isn’t a bad thing. This is not a band experimenting with melodic death metal or death n’ roll; no, this is an all-out assault of old-school death metal which hits the spot. Tracks such as ‘Evil is Evil’ and ‘Tremble in Fear’ show that time hasn’t dulled Centinex’s fangs having all the power of Grave, Dismember and of course, Entombed with its guttural chainsaw like delivery.
It may have been two years since Centinex last released a studio album with ‘Death in Pieces’ and in all honesty, ‘The Pestilence’ does have all the feel of a stopgap; something to tide us all over whilst the Swedes plot their next studio album. If you’re looking for some death metal which sticks traditionally to its guns, delivered with no frills or gimmicks, then ‘The Pestilence’ does the job.
