Through Emptiness

My first thought on the band: did they really name themselves after an item in Diablo II? Well, I suppose it is a shield made of skulls, so that's pretty metal. They could even use the 20% faster cast rate if they wanted to be like Dragonforce... but, I digress.

This is fairly diverse for death metal - it has a lot of melodic death metal guitar parts with only a single guitarist, so no harmonies, but quite a bit of melody. There are some acoustic and clean sections that are really nice. The guitar leads and solos are really well phrased, singing melodies. I am quite impressed by the quality of the melodic guitar work without using harmonies, and the mix, though a bit noisy, isn't too crowded. I can actually hear the bass, and it's very useful to the songs.

The vocals are alright, nothing exceptional, but they fit the music and are inoffensive. The drumming is good, working well with the riffs beyond simple beats when needed, and the drum sound, although compressed, is pretty nice. The guitar tones are soft and thick, with a bit of an edge, though most of the sharpness and clarity seems to have been lost through a lot of distortion and layering. The production has a very full mid range, while the guitar's compression makes it feel dark and the high end is quite full, though anything but bright. It certainly feels like a demo, with imperfections in the production, but it's still very good.

This is good, worth a listen or two on its own, and I'd like to hear more from the band.