Erased from the Memory of Man

After a dreadfully mediocre first album of ponderous death metal, Watchmaker shifted gears on their follow-up, 2003's Kill. F*****g. Everyone. That album consisted of little more than under-60-second blasts of speedcore and was, in a different way, just as boring as their debut. Third time's the charm, sort of, because Erased from the Memory of Man finally hits a decent balance between brief noise blurts like "Relentless Post Mortem Killing" and longer death metal tunes like "Therapeutic Dirt Nap." Also, the sound on this album is far improved over either of its predecessors, with the hyperspeed blur of instruments sounding considerably less thin and trebly than before. That leaves only the songwriting, which unfortunately is as derivative and unoriginal as before. Still, they're getting closer.