Reviewed by Mohsen Fayyazi

Artist: ALBATROSS
Album: Dinner Is You
Label: Demonstealer Records
Year: 2010

1. The Great Plague Of The 21st Century
2. The Dining Table
3. In The Court Of Kuru
4. Among the Cannibals

“Dinner Is You” is the debut EP of Indian horror metal band ALBATROSS who describe their band as “…a band which combines bone chilling stories with bone crushing metal.” And it explains everything. The band‘s debut EP shows me a very shiny and successful future for ALBATROSS and it seems the heavy metal universe  is going to include  another great horror metal band soon.

Dinner Is You starts with a short but long named track entitled “The Great Plague Of The 21st Century”, intro reminds me of the famous classical theme Tchaikovsky’s Slavonic March, not like what the legendary ACCEPT played in “Metal Heart”, but ALBATROSS found a way to play it in an even more mysterious way by using wah and delay which sounds like a march from hell. The singer starts speaking musically which makes the song more mysterious and full of horror and it sounds like you are listening to one of Tim Burton’s movie sound tracks. “The Dining Table” is the second track, filled by some heavy and powerful riffs on the guitars and bass. The vocalist sings in a high pitch and range which sometimes reminds me of legendary and master of horror metal, King Diamond’s style. The solo doesn’t sounds great at first but it would be different at 4:49 when an Iron Maiden ish solo starts to rock, but unfortunately it’s short and holds you to carry on to the third track.

The third track is my favourite one, “In The Court Of Kuru”, only the name can explain what we should expect in this song, what a horrid name by the way. I am impressed with this song which shows me the talent of these guys in writing such horror filled lyrics and music. Someone screams in the distance and another dark story starts, it’s very heavy, dark and also mysterious. The vocalist performs his parts in such a great way that reminds me again of the King. At 3:00 time I found myself again in a Tim Burton ish theme again and a picture of a dark and sick village with rain comes from above appears  in front of my eyes. This sends such strong scary shivers in the whole of my body and gives me a feeling of apprehension when the guitars start playing a genius riff on chromatic scales,which is a legacy of the legendary BLACK SABBATH. The final track is “Among The Cannibals” which is a bizarre concept story and at last I found some oriental theme in this EP, honestly I was expecting that ALBATROSS use more oriental scales and mood in their music. This track is the longest one, great rhythms, riffs, bridges and solo, all prove that I am right about expecting a shiny future for ALBATROSS in the heavy metal universe.

“Dinner Is You” is a very dark and heavy EP in lyrics and music, which can be heard a little raw. But this is understandable because it’s  ALBATROSS’s debut, in fact the band cannot start better than this ,which is an amazing debut from India. My rate for “Dinner Is You” is 8/10 and I’m looking forward to hearing more great music from this band.