"The Sum Of All Your Fears" is an 11 song slab of metal showing Eyes Of The Dead at their heaviest and tightest so far in their over a decade long career. EOTD go straight for the gut with album opener "Recollection". Blazing riffs, melodic harmonies and catchy hooks set the pace for this thrash fueled offering. Pummeling the listeners skull with an array of riffs and a whirlwind of classic, Iron Maiden style harmonies. "May Cause Internal Bleeding" is an exercise in classic death metal, propelled by a vicious double bass drum attack and a plethora of slick, catchy riffs ala "Heartwork" era Carcass. "The Ballad of Camp Blood" is a pulsing, foot stomping rager about our favorite machete weilding serial slasher Jason Voorhees. This track is musically reminiscent of classic Pantera and vocally recalls Chris Barnes in his pre-dreadlocked hey-day. I have always loved this band, and their past releases always still get tons of spins from me, but I have to point out that "The Sum Of All Your Fears" from beginning to end has finally captured vocalist Frank Connors vicious vocal attack as consistently delivered in the bands live performances. His high, throaty screams and low guttural bellows are mixed perfectly and he absolutely delivers a stand out performance on every single track. A new, unexpected twist in this album sees EOTD using acoustic guitars as heard on the interlude "Reservations at Dorsia" and "Sometimes..." which serves as a warm up to the track "Dead Is Better" a brutal neck breaker which tells the sory of the Stephen King classic Pet Semetary. "Arachnophobia" is one of my top favorite tracks here. This track smashes and thrashes and keeps the listener on their toes with flawless timing changes and some power metal styled vocals in the chorus provided by Ryan Bair while Frank tells the tale of the classic horror flick featuring venomous spiders terrorizing a small town. Every track on this album is chock full of guitar pyrotechnics. Matt and Pat deliver the goods on their six strings with tons of chainsaw buzzing riffs, killer harmonies and searing leads that burn their way through the speakers. EOTD's drum and bass section however, is not one to be overlooked. Brian's snarling basslines and James' metronome like timing are definitely the backbone of this band as evidenced in tunes like "Gallery of Human Atrocity" and "Righteous Kill". I never thought I'd be reviewing a death metal tune about an animated series, but here I am as "Danger Zone" thumps through my speakers with it's frantic pace, twisting rythms and Frank growling about "gummy bears and scotch" lol. Fans of Archer will definitely appreciate this fun song and crank it up! "Murders and Executions" brings this album to a close and I cant help but wonder if the guys in Eyes Of The Dead have any Swedish blood flowing in their veins? They may hail from Connecticut, but this band have their finger on the pulse of what makes melodic, Scandinavian death metal so awesome, the sixth sense for melody and intracacy. This band plays like they were conceived with their instruments waiting in the womb for them and they were fed a steady musical diet of the best bands Gothenburg has to offer when they were youngsters. As they always have, Eyes of the Dead put their own original spin on their obvious influences, playing with the technical precision of classic Testament, the bludgeoning brutality of Death, the melodic fury of Amon Amarth and the epic grandiose of Iced Earth. All in all, EOTD swing for the fences and deliver a grand slam with "The Sum Of All Your Fears". This is death metal for the listener who also digs bay area thrash metal, has an affinity for horror movies and drinks their mead from a horn. This album needs to be in your collection immediately so head over to facebook.com/eotdmetal or send an email to eyesofthedead@knac.com and drop a line asking how to get a physical copy of "The Sum of All Your Fears". Those of you who prefer MP3's for your iPod, phone or other devices can grab the tracks from iTunes, Amazon, Spotify, Google Play and anywhere else you download your music, so go grab it now!
