The Lazarus Breed

Belgium’s Fleshmould are a somewhat technical death metal outfit that seem to manage only the occasional flash of brilliance to bring some interest back to the listener.

The Lazarus Breed is an ambitious album in some respects in that it does make an attempt to integrate different styles into a seamless concoction but I found that often this made the album sound disjointed. In fact this mixing of styles and ideas often made me feel that the songs were just rambling for the sake of rambling, with riff being chucked on top of riff with no clear direction of where things were supposed to heading. There are a couple of songs on this disc that run for 8 minutes or so but could most likely have run for half the time.

I found the production and overall mix to be quite lacking, with the production sounding quite dull and lifeless and the mix slanted too far in the favour of the drums. Whilst it wasn’t un-listenable, it wasn’t able to convey any emotion at all and felt unintentionally cold and dreary. It has all the hallmarks of a home recording and few signs that it was actually recorded in a professional studio.

All is not as bad as it seems for the band though as there were several sections of the album that I really enjoyed such as the melodic Eternal Shifting Portals or the guns blazing Structures in Decline. And even though for the most part I did find the songs to be disjointed and too flooded with ideas, there were always good riffs to be found throughout them which is why I was so disappointed overall with the album.

Fleshmould have the goods to become a strong band internationally because they do have technical skill and interesting ideas but until they can really focus that skill into writing songs that have a better flow and direction I will be giving them a miss.

(Previously submitted to themetalforge.com)