Lepers Caress

To start this off, I can't say I'm too fond of their last 2 albums, We Are the Nightmare and Starve for the Devil, I wasn't even too thrilled with united in Regret either... But A Celebration of Guilt and their following EP A Diamond for Disease are two of my all time favorite melodic death metal releases. Lepers Caress isn't a full-on return to glory for Arsis, but it's certainly a step on the right path.

The intro tune left me a bit wary, as it doesn't give way to anything too promising. What doubts I had after the first minute and a half were quickly extinguished the moment six coffins wide broke into some seriously heavy riffage with the signature wailing guitar melodies and fast-as-hell paced death/thrash-esque chugging. As started previously though, the chorus is a bit too Starve for the devil sounding in the sense that it just feels a bit half-assed, the melodic refrain is just kind of filler for the other 75% of the song which is pure old school Celebration-era Arsis. What caught my eye to this release initially was the fact they had re-re-released one of my favorite tracks off A Celebration of Guilt, Veil of Mourning Black. This was the song that originally prompted me to give this a listen, and needless to say it's every bit as good as the original. Not much input to it other than if you enjoyed it as a bonus track on Celebration, you'll like it on Lepers Caress. A Tearful Haunt Condemned is probably the one song on this EP I really can't get into, the older style of Arsis playing is still present, but the melodies just don't seem to have the same hooks that Six Coffins and the final track, Denied have. Which brings me to the final track on this release, Denied. Which sports some of the more inventive musicianship which got me into this band in the first place, the melodies and rhythms in this track just have that melancholic feel that I still get every time Maddening Disdain or Face of my Innocence comes on when I put my iPod on shuffle.

Lepers Caress is an interesting listen from start to finish, no matter how much you may have loathed or loved Starve for the devil this EP still has some potential replay capability for Arsis fans of any album. One can only hope they may ditch the glitzy, glam rock-laden sound of Starve and return to their former excellence that was A Diamond for Disease or A Celebration of guilt.