UNDERTAKERS - ITALY

UNDERTAKERS - SUFFERING WITHIN - CRYPTIC SOUL
Ah, good old, pure, undiluted, genuine death metal; a matter of pride. Emerging from Italy, and bearing a professional outlook on things, the five-piece has released an album which is through and through death metal. Featuring tracks like Immortal Invocation, Beyond The Dreams and my personal favourite Killing Machine, the Undertakers have released an album that fills the gap between the Cannibal Corpse and Malevolent Creation albums. The band's music and vocals bear resemblances to the two American acts and that sector is where they will have to draw their fan base from. The guitars on the album, unfortunately, suffer from a bland and rather impersonal sound and the band would do well were it to improve this. All in all then there are no surprises on this, but that very fact is the surprise of 1997. When in the record store it is the album with red all over. - Ali "The Metallian"

UNDERTAKERS - GLOBAL DOMINION - TIME TO KILL  
An alarming intro kicks off the album, matching the release's title and cover artwork. Only singer Enrico Giannone and guitarist Stefano Casanica remain from the band's early days in the 1990s, but Undertakers has not lost its zeal for extreme metal and grind. In fact, the music here consolidates all the previous gains into something even more extreme. Meanwhile, three other members are new with one, bassist Marco Mastrobuono, being nothing more than a bass-for-hire. Perhaps Giannone's recent participation in the Season Of The Dead project brought him and the band out of retirement. Maybe Giannone being the owner of Time To Kill Records (the bio makes no mention of this and additionally adds a laughably false claim that the music contains a "sharp black metal edges") means that hearing many of the bands on his label told him that he can do it better, which led to this record. This is worth mentioning because Global Dominion is the Undertakers' first album in 26 years. Apparently, anger and resentment have only built up since the last album and emerged to explode on Global Dominion.
If the passing years have not dimmed the band's penchant for death metal, then what does Global Dominion sound like? There is still a touch of Cannibal Corpse here, especially on the first track, but this is more Brutal Truth than brutal death metal. The drummer is pounding his kit like there's no tomorrow, the guitars shred and chew their way through the songs and the bass is rock solid. The vocals are not the deepest, but occupy a space somewhere between Napalm Death and Cannibal Corpse. The double bass drums make themselves heard. A few dissonant riffs even find their way into the short and punchy tracks after a couple of movie overdubs.
The song Plutocracy comes very close to Napalm Death and begins with harsh bass. Collapse Control is one of the hyper-fast tracks. Rise Of Resistance offers a prescient quotation by Che Guevara, which precedes a masterclass in riffing and double bass drumming named Rise Of Resistance. Body Supermarket's guitar snippet is reminiscent of Carcass. A strong mix of extreme metal here. - Ali "The Metallian"