A World Destroyer

What the hell has happened to my favourite melodeath bands?! First Norther, now Degradead… I haven’t thought I’d ever say this but I’m glad The Duskfall disbanded. It’s a great comfort to know that at least they will never release any crap. Making a weaker album is no crime; it happens and a fan should be able to understand and forgive. But making an album of so disastrously low quality, so different from the previous one, can’t be forgiven. At least my forbearance is limited. A band I consider one of my favourites must keep a certain level. The minimal requirement is staying within a genre it used to represent. And so, if melodeath remains within broadly understood death metal nothing disastrous may happen. But if it turns towards power or heavy metal or, even worse, flirts with pop… Well, then we get Norther’s Circle Regenerated and Degradead’s A World Destroyer. What a confusing title, by the way! Judging by this only, you’d expect a brutal ass-kicker. Ha, ha, very funny. A more appropriate title would be A Vomit Inducer! Eh, why am I so angry? After the Amoral-trauma I should know better and always be prepared for the worst…

Two years ago I wrote here an anthem for Degradead’s Out Of Body Experience. I was enchanted with its freshness, with guitar solos, with everything except for clean vocals (which, however, were insignificant constituent of the album and spoiled one song only). Now the freshness is gone – the band members play like old farts suffering from dementia. Guitar solos don’t go smoothly, are forced and irritating. And what struck me most, it seems that the only song of Out Of... I dislike has become a model for all tracks of A World Destroyer. A bit ironical, isn’t it?

Let’s forget about vocals for a while. Musically Degradead haven’t changed that much; they use the same techniques, the rhythm and tempo are the same too. But the music somehow degenerated. It has become effete, a bit boring and unpleasantly softened. The drumming is mechanical and devoid of energy, like Kenneth was dozing off during the recordings. Something wrong has also happened to guitars. Apart from miserable solos, the guitars sound similar to keyboards(?!) at times, which is simply a blasphemy. And the real keyboards are here too! In fact I’m under an impression that I hear some shit-keyboards in the background all the time. There’s no doubt, though, that they proudly manifest themselves in choruses. As if clean vocals were not enough to make those choruses insufferable.

Yeah, choruses… A World Destroyer contains the set of most affected choruses I’ve ever heard on a metal album. Choosing the worst of them is a real challenge. Tracks 5, 7 and 9 are in the lead but I still can’t make up my mind. On the other hand, I can say easily which chorus is most tolerable – the one of A False Hope. Anyway, I quite like the whole song.

Beside keyboards, clean vocals are the most characteristic choruses’ feature. Except for the one of The Final Judgment, which I don’t like too (singing each phrase with a different voice is not a good idea). Although I’m definitely a growl-worshipper, I’ve never been against the clean vocals’ use in death metal and its subgenres. But there are clean vocals and clean vocals. Think of Aleksi Sihvonen. Think of Ari Koivunen. Think of the worst clean vocals you ever heard and be sure that Micke Sehlin can do equally badly.

Here’s a brief survey of the most “outstanding” vocal effects in A World Destroyer’s choruses.
A Taste Of Destiny: a piercing operatic cry (I guess this is how drunk Tony Kakko sounds) and prolonging of vowels in a weepy way.

Broken: Have you happened to hear a magnificent chorus of a song Durch den Monsun by a magnificent band Tokio Hotel? If you listened to Degradead’s Broken, be sure you already have.

No One Prevail: (Horrible intro, by the way) the whining of an affectionate teenage boy whose voice breaks.

Cold Blood: a cheerful “ awaaaaay” and “ooo-oo-o’s ”. In this song we also have a choral Gregorian-like interlude which fits here like a fist into an eye.

Near The End: A boysband-like intro kills. And this very phrase is then repeated in the chorus. Plus hateful repetitions of the phrases’ endings.

Kept In The Dark. “Save me from myself” wails Micke. It should be rather “Save me from my clean vocals”.

That’s it, roughly. You may wonder why I rated this album so high then? Just because it’s quite nice when you listen to it turning the volume down each time a song nears its chorus. And, above all, because of Sehlin’s harsh vocals. This is the only flawless element of this album. Micke presents here the whole range of his growling styles, any of which is great. Since the previous album he has even improved. There is something perverse about that a guy who is able to growl like this has also such an abominable manner of clean singing. It’s like a Viking wearing a dress! Eh, Mikael, Mikael, drop clean vocals and I’m all yours.

CLARIFICATON: An adjective "nice" I've used above is confusing as it may suggest that listening to this album gives me some pleasure. No, it doesn't. Yet, I c a n listen to it.

Oh boy, here we go again. Remember when melodic death metal in the vein of In Flames or maybe Soilwork wasn't total garbage? Yea, I'm drawing blanks too. Degradead excelled wonderfully at creating an annoying and uninteresting musical fiasco throughout "A World Destroyer," which is destined for the toilet. Half-assed and unoriginal, clichéd melodic death metal is the name of the game, and it all comes crashing down right from the start, but then again, what would you except from a bunch of dudes that unanimously agreed to give their band such a stupid moniker? I'm ironically a fan of many melodic death bands like The Absence or Scar Symmetry, having no quam whether melody overcomes death or vice versa, so I'd usually chow down on stuff like this, but this is just painful.

Degradead's metallic philosophy mirrors the pop-laden, metalcore-flirting of In Flames, with all the clean vocals and poor song writing intact. There is not one instance in which one of the ten tracks pulls a zinger out of left-field and emits something interesting; instead, the album finds its focus from predictable verses and choruses cycling in a bland, banal rhythm. The band's modus operandi requires little brainpower to understand. A self-painted portrait, no doubt. The microwavable structuring is, however, secondary to the musical atrocities committed throughout "A World Destroyer." Juvenile, pseudo-death/thrash metal riffs given a sprinkle of melody defines the record's guitar playing; the one-two percussion beats and other drumming patterns typically found in the crappier side of melodic death metal are the law; and the spectrum of vocal styles (growling, shouting, clean singing, etc.) are totally off-key and unquestionably terrible.

On the merciful side of things, Degradead occasionally gets a listenable riff out here and there, but to credit them otherwise would be unwarranted. Perhaps there was a glimmer of potential: the opening "A Taste of Destiny" unwraps neatly with an enjoyable riff, but soon keyboards and vomit-inducing clean vocals appear, totally throwing off the first impression. They seemingly make an attempt to cover all of melodic death's bases once they drive into "Cold Blood," an anthem that contains more qualities to The Absence than you'd care to hear. Ironically, it's my favorite song from "A World Destroyer" because (a) the music isn't total trash, and (b) they sound like The Absence. Call me narrow-minded, but it's the only cut that truly heightened my curiosity.

Everything else is forgettable and offensive. "A World Destroyer" makes me wonder why melodic death metal has taken this route instead of appealing to real, authentic Gothernburg hymns that were once the stone-cold definition of this sound. This simpler direction, too, isn't horrible if there's some variety and decent song writing involved, but that's where Degradead fails. The group looks confused and mesmerized by the hip and trendy gimmicks instilled by In Flames and other “me-too” bands pollinating the melodic death image with minimal brainpower and elementary-level song writing. “A World Destroyer” thoroughly collapses, so don’t let Degradead waste your time.

This review was written for: www.Thrashpit.com