A Familiar Room

Everything today is neo-this or revival of that. Very rarely do we see a band come out with something new that we want to hear (metal-core and death-core do not count, there’s nothing going on there). One of these new waves is the worship of old school Finnish and Swedish death metal. Magenta Harvest is one of these bands. Lucky for them with this review, I absolutely revere this era of music.

Magenta Harvest can arguably be considered death metal, but it really comes down to melodic death metal in my view. Fans of Amon Amarth, old In Flames and Dark Tranquility, and Nightrage will find much to love, as I have. They have no qualms in showing these traits off, which doesn’t bother me too much, because Magenta Harvest is a super group consisting of members of …And Oceans, myGRAIN, and Cthonian, bands which all have established credentials in the Finnish melodic death metal scene. So this project is about having fun with the music, not introducing some artsy crap. They’re here only to mercilessly beat the crap out of you while having a grand ole time.

This energy really makes the music pop. Killer tracks like Spawn of Neglect and A Familiar Room don’t contain complex riffing or rhythms, but they are played so convincingly that you can’t help but bang your head. The blasting isn’t George Kollias fast, but the drum set still sounds like it could unhinge at any moment and you would have an uncontrolled fill, which sometimes occurs in a moment of blazing brutality. The riffs are also just sound enjoyable to play, especially the main riff on Killing Sign.

These guitars really draw from everywhere. Tracks like A Familiar Room and Killing Sign draw heavily from standard death metal with their tremolo riffs, while the poly-rhythmic earth shattering breakdowns on feel equal parts Suffocation and Scar Symmetry. Killing Sign also features a real thrash-y face-peeling riffage, while Sermon messes around with rhythm and lets the vocals handle the melody, much like today’s melodeath is produced. The solos are sweet too, with epic leads maneuvering the chorus of Spawn of Neglect while Killing Sign shreds it out a little.

The vocals also give A Familiar Room its classic melodic death metal feel rather than just a plain death metal project. Aside from on the title tracks, the vocals tend to hover in the realm of Amon Amarth and In Flames (again, the early stuff), tending to keep away from the low guttural vocals. Still, he has very good control, terrible pronunciation, and pretty good length for the hold of a single growl. While being mostly unintelligible, he produces some memorable melody lines which really stick in your head rather than simply being a rhythm instrument.

The songwriting is however, a bit less appealing. Most all of the demos featured here follow a verse-chorus basic structure, so by the end of the song, you generally know what’s coming next. That being said, coupled with the old school feel, this demo is immediately accessible to fans of the genre. And yet, songs like Sermon don’t feel totally put together correctly with awkward transitions, which is a problem one most songs. I guess that’s why A Familiar Room is a demo tape.

The transitions in the songs are usually kind of abrupt and guitar led, leaving the drums to kind of stumble back into place for the next phrase. The drummer has a little trouble going outside the typical patterns, frequently following the guitar rhythms or going at a nice moderate pace with the double bass pedals. Despite this though, the blasting is quite frantic and maniacal on the first two cuts. Also, being that these are demo tapes, the bass kind of sucks. Meaning it’s not really even there.

Magenta Harvest is a great throwback project with slightly modern influences without the sissy keyboards, and they make it sound authentic and as passionate as if it was breaking all sorts of new ground. That’s the only real problem with the band; the tree has been barked up before. However, with most of those bands I listed as similarities having sold out to a weaker sound, we need more Magenta Harvests to remind us how this is done. I’ll definitely be on the lookout for a full length from this actually successful super group. Best track: Spawn of Neglect.