I am flabbergasted that this incredibly solid piece of ASPHYX-worshipping old-school death metal is an indie. Even the production sounds perfect, totally betraying the fact that this isn't being bankrolled by Century Media or Metal Blade, which surprises me, because while we all hail HAIL OF BULLETS and the GRAND SUPREME BLOOD COURT for damn good reason, we should also be hailing AFFLICATION GATE after getting a load of this. Hitting the exact same speeds and strides that those bands do, these guys follow up 2009's debut full-length (which I must admit I haven't heard, but really should) with this brief (three songs and an outro) EP, which does the “old-school Swedish death by way of anything Martin van Drunen touches” sound perfectly. It stomps, it sludges through the battlefields, it picks it up to the mid-tempo death polka, but it does it all with such a solidity and determination it gets the blood pumping. This is amazingly well-done stuff, high class, high quality, really getting to the core of what makes death metal so good. Nearly a 9.0.
