By John Bedard
I love it when death metal starts with a dark and ominous spoken word. It sets the stage perfectly for the type of emotion and style I love to hear in death metal. When that is followed up by wonderfully aggressive and angry tracks that really drive the emotion home, I am one happy man. This album delivers perfectly on what I want and like to hear. The press information described it as old school death metal and I think that is a perfect description. This is defiantly old school with just enough modern flair to make it not feel dated.
The vocals have this perfect heavy distortion that cuts right through the mix and drives right into your soul, if you will pardon the cheesy analogy. You can really feel the emotion driving the vocals giving this powerful tone that keeps that energy originally set going throughout the whole experience. There is nothing to complain about with the vocal style. It is in your face and brutal. No apologies were given just unrelenting power. Combine that with music that is equally as brutal, and the stage is set for a great experience.
Speaking of the music, it is wonderful. It is aggressive and heavy hitting. I particularly loved the drums. I find that a lot of the time death metal can lean too heavily on the drums, especially on the kick pedal. We don’t have that problem here they are present and driving but not overbearing. Rather complementing all the other instruments instead of dominating. This is a good thing because the tone of the guitars and bass are also excellent. The tone is heavy but with plenty of mid-range still dialed in allowing the guitar to really cut through when they want it too. As a side note, I love when a short acoustic track is thrown into the middle of a death metal album as it adds a nice variety to the experience and ‘Bliss’ is one of the better tracks in this style I have heard. It does a great job bringing you back to that early dark and ominous feeling that was set with the first track. And the transition in and out of the slower acoustic track is done really well.
I loved this album and I would be willing to bet most fans of the genre will too. It is not blazing new ground but instead is a wonderful example of how to do the genre well. I think you would be hard-pressed to find issue with what is delivered here. It is good old school death metal at its best. Go pick this one up. You will not regret it.
- ‘Haven Of Lies’ is out now. You can get your copy HERE.
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