The way Nuclear Blast touted this band and this album you'd think these guys were the Apocalypse itself. Unfortunately for those that bought into the hype this album is far from great, and much farther from legendary. The main thing lacking here is originality.

The intro, ZAHQ, is a bit creepy and sets a good tone for the album, at least for what these guy want to accomplish (Zombiecore? Sure). The next track, Zombiefied, starts fast and we hear the screaming of Bastibasti load and clear. A massive breakdown with plenty of quick, melodic guitar leads quickly causes me to start losing interest, simply because it does not sound original in any way, in fact it sounds like most of it was ripped off from any of the ten thousand other sub-par metalcore acts out there. We are also greeted by clean vocals on this track, something that will be used heavily throughout the rest of the album. The band, like many in their genre, relies heavily on clean vocals to create a melodic, emotional atmosphere. Sometimes it works, other times it does not. It also doesn't help that the guitar work on this album, and just the song structures in general, are pretty uninspired for the most part. The guitar work often reminded me of newer All That Remains, a band I have been wholly unimpressed with over the past couple albums. Every song it's the same thing, some melodic guitar leads that continue unchanging throughout the song along with some awful screaming mixed with clean vocals. Many times while listening to this album I was unsure whether I had heard a song before or not. Not a whole lot stuck with me.

Tanz Der Teufel is a cut above some of the other songs; the tempo changes rapidly throughout the song and throws some pretty tight riffing at you. The vocals are still the same for the most part, except toward the end for some shouted tomfoolery. Hearing the intro to Phantomschmerz I actually think this song could turn out good, simply because it sounds different. The clean vocals actually sound good, the melody of the song is also alright, albeit unoriginal. I suppose this is what passes for a ballad in metalcore these days. Fremdkorper gets my attention with...acoustic guitar? Yes, that's right. And it continues through the whole song! The vocals aren’t half bad either. So what's going on here? It looks like these guys may actually have attempted to write a song that tries to defy the genre. Unfortunately it's only one song, and it's obviously too little, too late.