On their second demo, Finland's Disease Of The Nation keep up the fury with their tried mixture of a myriad of styles ranging from hardcore to death metal and punk to alternative rock. The disc-opening title track starts off by grinding speakers into oblivion with frantic blasting and then alternating between hardcore-grooves and a deathier chorus that yearns the presence of the live stage. The mid-song mosh-section demands respect as well.

Shotgun Between Your Eyes rips it open with a pleasingly complex riff (not too technical though) and continues as a more thrashy onslaught until around the chorus section which is littered with bursts of grindcore, groove metal and…accordion? Yes, accordion. I know, it must sound disjointed but dammit, it works. And they didn’t even get to the mosh-part and ooooing background vocals.

The Fist Magnet makes the brave attempt at mixing the most tender moments on the record with harder-edged alt rock melancholy with the occasional screams and metallic riffs thrown in and unfortunately beyond a few cool dynamics and a widdly solo, it doesn’t work for me. Besides the challenge of making the softer material stick out positively within this style, the song also most glaringly shows that singer/guitarist Mikko Knuuttila has the longest way to go with his clean vocals. His high-pitched screams and hoarse shouts are great but when stripped of the aggression, the voice calls for more power & timber. It may not actually be what the theme of the song calls for, but I digress. Fortunately the closing tune of the album, New Born Depression, returns to form with a furiously thrashing attack that is ideal material for bashing someone’s face in with the added lead guitar licks, groovy mid-section and quirky background vocals bringing in pleasing spices.

The furious chops of the band are evident throughout and I must emphasise that it’s refreshing to listen to a band that is considerably adventurous in trying out different elements and making it work more often than not while not going overboard with the melting pot just for the sake of not sounding like a carbon copy of a distinct band. While I can see many being turned off by certain elements or others in Disease Of The Nation’s brand of metal, they have worlds of potential and continued to develop it even better on their next demo.

Full songs in full force from MySpace