Fallujah is a city in the middle of Iraq, not far from Baghdad. Since the start of the Iraqi insurgency in 2003, Fallujah became an important city were many al Qaida fighters were hiding. Americans bombed the city almost every day, causing a lot of civilian casualties. Searching Fallujah with Google Image’s will therefore result in some awful pictures. Fallujah is also a political and anti-religion themed metal band from the San Francisco Bay Area.

On the band’s debut MCD Leper Colony, Fallujah unfolds various extreme metal substyles. The main sound can be described as modern death metal, with the addition of breakdowns (deathcore) and some more blackened stuff. The average mood on this disc is quite serious. No happy sing-a-long parts, but more speeded and well recorded fast death metal with heavy breakdowns every now and then (except for the intro song, which is almost a breakdown for its entire duration).

Highlight of the album is ‘Infernal Majesty’, which sounds well varied in the style of UK’s Ignominious Incarceration. ‘Le Serpent Rouge’ has a fine Hate Eternal like-part, while the title track holds a frightening atmosphere and tends more towards blackened death metal, due to some extended blastbeat parts. The deathcore elements in songs like ‘Ancient Dialectic’ and ‘Slave Race’ can be compared to bands like ABACABB and Oceano, for their serious undertone.

All in all a promising MCD, that proves that Fallujah outgrows the local scene, and probably even that of California. If the band manages to create a more unique sound within the elements of tech-death, groove and atmospheric blackened death metal, their upcoming debut in the beginning of 2010 could be a very interesting one. The use of the term al Qaida in this review will at least gain them some more hits and name awareness.