Last of Kin

Metal, regardless of the genre you’re looking at, isn’t exactly renowned for its clever band monikers; however it seems with this young Finnish melodeath act we’ve just reached a new low. 2nd Suicide, c’mon! Maybe, assuming you (only) live twice, it somehow makes sense. Now if there’s a positive comment to make on this short demo, it will be the sound is near to perfect. Together fully professional and unadulterated, it could barely have fitted the music better – only the lead guitar sounds a bit too buried in the mix, but the listener quickly gets used to it anyway; and if the additional clean vocals on the last track are almost inaudible this isn’t of a big concern given they’re totally useless no matter how you look at them.

Coming to the music itself it’s always extremely hard to get any definitive opinion from a mere thirteen minutes sample. The first impression would be it doesn’t sound particularly original; oddly the first name who sprung to my mind was the one of the Japanese Shadow (which, though not totally unknown, is nonetheless a pretty minor band), but as in turn Shadow is strongly inspired from any Gothenburg pioneer you’ll want (let’s say old Dark Tranquillity) you’ll draw your own conclusions. Still, a little something personal might already appear here, like a particular way to tackle the melodic side of melodeath. I’m not talking about potential flowery keyboards here as there isn’t any keyboard on this release – but more about this precious, catchy and somehow GOOFY approach of the riffing, particularly obvious on the second and third track. Think what you want about those, they’re the kind of tunes durably sticking in one’s head, proof these guys may well have a future after all.

Granted, the rest of the matter doesn’t need any extended description. It’s all fast and energetic, topped by some pissed off Mikael Stanne clone probably yelling at pretty much everything he can think about – this isn’t bad per se, but again it’s downright déjà-vu, and let’s admit Stanne does it better. The solos or the pure instrumental parts are all kept rather short, which is a pity as they’d almost show more inventiveness compared to the “sung” parts. Let’s give credit nonetheless to those three songs for being all clearly different (even at first listen) and of pretty much equal quality, though I’d still show a small preference for the title track I found, who knows why, some funny, refreshing edge in. Goofy stuff, I told you. Promising, though.

Highlights: Last of Kin