Deadly Illness - Deadly Illness # 4

Deadly Illness #4 is a great midday read for an underground zine with a heavy load of reviews, some really cool interviews with bands from the hardcore punk scene, death metal and black metal and thrash realms, and a some slight exploration of the expansive noise scene as well. Ultimately, you're not going to read interviews with any major bands, not going to hear the same tired responses from people you could care less about and not going to see space wasted on whole page adds for products and releases you're never going to buy. It's a pure underground labor of love. Hungary's Poller Csaba has done a great job of incorporating bands that he wants to see do well and that he believes should get some help spreading the word. Bands like Germ Attach, Anguish, Sardonis, Grave Ritual, the awesome Protector, Psycopath Witch and Slaughter Strike. Also included is about five pages of quick reviews and an interview with Brandon of Skeleton Plague Records.

The writing is good, readable, and even though Csaba is from Hungary, he still writes with more English proficiency than I've seen in some zines from homegrown papermakers. There is, predictably, some humorous quirkiness in reading English from someone who I expect does not use English as their first language but that makes it all the better. Deadly Illness is a sweet little zine worth the time of someone looking for a small zine to digest without feeling overwhelmed.