Debris

Cult of Violence may be an obscure band, but their brand of melodic death metal is not without its merit. The band is generally working at a slower pace for a lot of these songs, but they still manage to deliver some decent death metal, although they do stick to the typical playbook most of the time.

The instrumentation of this album is generally fine, relying a lot on simple power chords and pinch harmonics and occasionally throwing in some blast beats. "Dead Speak" has a pretty interesting song structure with some nice riffs on the second half that hold a lot of melody. The vocals are a lot darker and heavier than what's usually heard in melodic death metal, but they seem to fit the tone of the album pretty well. "Sew Up My Mouth" sees the band slow up quite a bit as well, but the vocals don't go anywhere, providing a nice juxtaposition between the cleanliness of the music and the earthiness of the growls. As the song progresses and slowly speeds up, the band works in a lot of different rhythms that make for an interesting track.

The band does hit us with a bit of a lull on "Sell the King," though, a song that just sounds less inspired than the rest of the material on this album. What's interesting about this record is that it sounds like it was recorded in the '90s: the musical style and the production would fit right in with the era. So while this does add a hint of nostalgia to the album, it also does very little to introduce the audience to anything new. The riffs and drum patterns have all been beaten into the ground by countless other death metal bands over the years, even if Cult of Violence brings a dash more melody to the table.

The band works in some other interesting ideas on the second half of the record, like the aggressive drumming on "Harbinger" and its structure against the higher-pitched riffing. But, by the end of this record, it's hard not to feel uninspired. The band could have accomplished much more had they trekked beyond the confines of a standard death metal album from 1998, released by a band who played At the Gates on repeat. While this is a decent listen, and it's still worth checking out for hardcore fans of the genre, there isn't anything here that reinvents the wheel, proving why some records are meant to remain in the underground.