When Fire Engulfs the Earth

The best way to describe Dark Oath is epic melodic death metal by numbers. Pretense is palpable, along with the proclivity to lean unduly on orchestral padding that pushes many of these tunes well past the five minute mark, which is just bordering on the typical juncture where songs in this style begin to wear out their welcome despite what would be in lesser amounts a formidable amalgam of symphonic tropes redolent of Wintersun, Ensiferum, Frosttide, along with the newer crop like Silent Line, Euphoreon and Brymir. This style has been done to death recently, and despite firing on all the expected cylinders, When Fire Engulfs the Earth struggles to supplant its existence as enjoyable background music. Something that has little replay value and seriously begins to display critical faults when dissected in earnest.

Nine-plus minute opener "Land of Ours" truly sets the anachronistic stage, clearing laying out all of Dark Oath's strengths and weaknesses. The latter is certainly defined by the excessive running time, which the band finds trouble warranting throughout the entire album. When Fire Engulfs the Earth is in sore need of some variety on the vocal front, as a clean vocalist to trade off with the screaming would open a number of stylistic doors for the band, not to mention taking some of the spotlight off of Sara Leitão, whose sneering rasps are average at best. Being a female screamer in the Angela Gossow mold, her approach is somewhat less guttural than most, but it lacks presence and gusto. Join these underwhelming vocals with stock gothenthrash clutter riffs and its a tough sell for any listener boasting a pedigree intermediate and above. It simply fails to rise above the pack in any regard.

Now, I don't mean to shortchange Dark Oath entirely, as the final product as a whole is competent, as alluded to in the opening. By the third track "Battle Sons" the band already begins to recycle their formula to the point of diminishing returns, but they occasionally bust out some pulsing, orchestral stinger-supplanted riffing passages with thrashing, choppy precision. The opening volley of "Watchman of Gods" has some virulence to lend to the album, and despite losing its footing during the second half, it is probably the best track here. The leads are okay, but repeatedly bust out arpeggios that not only sound sluggish, but are note progressions we've heard thousands of times before. Can't we do something different? The rhythm section needs more sinewy bravado, especially since the band aims to bathe listeners in a rollicking, epic gait that eschews technical gesticulation in favor of more frugal fare that hopes to impress as a collective sum as opposed to the push-pull confusion resulting from incompetence on all fronts.

When Fire Engulfs the Earth is far from a complete waste, but I truly expected more from such a relatively established act. Production values sap further life out of the project, especially with the guitars sounding so brickwalled and impotent. The vocals simply dominate the sonic palette, a decision that rotates in caustic irrelevance where more polished aesthetics would fit the style better. Leitão's lyrics are competent and paint a fair picture of Norse history and the ancillary alliterations that come with it, and the album is at the very least a coherent vision that sells the subject matter fairly well. Otherwise, it simply comes off as a third stringer epic melodic death metal outing that warms the bench while its more competent peers (mentioned earlier) man the battlefield instead. "Vengeful Gods" has a nice galloping temperament and plays to more of the band's strengths and "Watchman of Gods" has some nifty moments. Otherwise, it is nothing more than average. Beginners will probably find more value here than I did, but it doesn't take a genre expert to ascertain that the band missed the mark here. What were they thinking?


Promo courtesy of The Metal Observer