Five Minutes Hate is an Italian death metal band, massively influenced by the Swedish invasion of the nineties and early two-thousands. At The Gates, In Flames, Dark Tranquility... that kind of stuff, but also Morbid Angel, Heaven Shall Burn, Carcass.... The band formed in 2004, first as a cover band. Shortly after, the first new songs are being written but the band split up in 2008, only to resurface in 2013 to work on this piece of aural torture device. If you're not used to death metal, this thing will torment your dreams.
Yet, what strikes me most is the fact that the vocals seem to nudge more towards fierce metalcore screams than death growls. I've been listening to this album a few times and at first I would have mentioned bands like Unearth or As I Lay Dying. Some readers might already know that metalcore isn't really my thing and, truth be told, I was already planning to push this album towards one of my colleagues. But then I started noticing how well the songs were written, how much variation the whole seemed to have.
So I started listening again, a few times even. I tried to replace the screams with growls and yes, there they were, the amazing riffs, the efficacious drums, the progressive elements. By now, songs like 'Past, This Stranger', 'Cem Anahuac' and 'Panic In Your Eyes' certainly show a well-attuned and talented band. A band that deserves your attention if you're into brutal stuff, whatever genre it is. So throw yourself into the moshpit, surf that crowd, build that wall-of-death, Five Minutes Hate are here and there are here to explode...
​Serge