Spetsnaz - Totalitär

When Spetsnaz released their well received debut album 'Grand Design' in 2003, they captured the world like a hurricane and finally we Swedes had an old-school project that we could be really proud of. After the reduction of Dupont it felt nice to once again beat the Germans and the Belgians on their fingers. Pontus and Stefan have been through a lot during these three years. They have been the headlines on many clubs, played at small and big festivals and also made it to the promised land of Tequila, Mexico. I have to admit that my hope in this album was enormous.

After the gentlemen's in march with the intro it all blows away with the electronic punk bash out "Uniform" and you are really struck at the first moment. Even if the right feeling starts to set in with "Evader", I feel that it is with the addictive Kindred" that things start to blow my mind. After that "Reign of Wolves" follows which is also a really great track. With the last two mentioned songs we have also heard the best of what the album offers us, even though some stable tracks like "Autonomy", "Warfare Inc." and "My Friend - Godspeed" follow later on.

With the album 'Totalitär' just released, the band went of on a tour with Proceed as a support act. Unfortunately, so far, Proceed wins the battle of the best old-school album of this year with their second album ''Neusprache''. Damn Germans, the beat us. But in a year or two it is a new battle, and then we will get them again.

This review was written 2006 and initially published on Neurozine.com Jan 01 2006