I’m all for the progressive nature of music as much as the next guy, but sometimes it really feels nice to simply travel back in time and experience something that sounds like it could’ve come out over ten or fifteen or so years ago. Metal has been prone to do that very same thing with death and black metal being especially large hotspots for such activity. Today, my focus has come once again to the former as the Bulgarian act of Concrete delivers a performance worthy of the reputation that old school death metal has garnered.

There’s a line between paying homage to the classic sound of a genre and being a blatant rip-off of a classic band in order to make yourself more favorable to potential listeners. All too often do bands simply copy and paste acts like Cannibal Corpse, Obituary, Exhumed, etc. to only toss it all into seven tracks calling it an original album. That’s something that always lingers in the back of my head whenever I see a band label themselves as “old school”, but luckily when I encountered Concrete there was no such problem to be had. Sure, the ten tracks that make up “Domain of Untold Horrors” definitely echo that of early Cannibal Corpse (especially in the vocals, if you ask me), but by no means do we get a clear rip-off with this album as it’s everything that many bands aspire to be when they aim to capture the old school. Concrete treats us to a blistering pace, unrelenting attitude, and a constant pace of ferocity that we all know and love from death metal, but these guys bring a very classic feel to “Domain of Untold Horrors” with such class where many other acts fail miserably. Yet, this band excels exceedingly so. That makes for a fresh trip of nostalgia that’s very satisfying across the subtle riffs and pure assault on the sense that Concrete has honed over the course of six years and now three albums, and ultimately allows “Domain of Untold Horrors” to go leagues beyond what many other bands try and fail to do.

Recapturing the sound of times past is a very difficult thing to do, but every so often we’re treated to an act that absolutely nails it. Right now, Concrete is the most recent band to do so and I’d be more than interested to hear an argument for otherwise. “Domain of Untold Horrors” is a very solid attempt at something that all too many fail to do otherwise and I can only imagine that these Bulgarians will go up from here on out.

LISTEN to “Domain of Untold Horrors” on Bandcamp here.

LIKE Concrete on Facebook here.