Self-Mythology

Moscovites from Seducer’s Embrace are proudly named as inventors of the Russian melodic death metal. Being influenced by tons of Swedish melodic death metal that was one of the major extreme metal trends in late 90s those guys however managed to create their unique melodic style mainly influenced by early In Flames and Dark Tranquility, Edge of Sanity, Iron Maiden and Megadeth. Their first songs were already rather mature in terms of structure and at the same time rich with brilliant melodies. The band at once became an often guest at Moscow club concerts. Developing rather fast and having obtained considerable respect among club audience guys managed to record their first full-length album – “Sinnocence” – in 2002 Though it was later seriously criticized by the musicians themselves, this work was met warmly by the band’s fans. Nobody could imagine that the next LP will appear only in 8 years…

Not that there were any misunderstandings among the band mates. Quite on the opposite! After a new guitarist – Max Fedoseev – appeared in the group in 2003 another guitarist and one the band’s masterminds – Alexey Dokhov - has finally found a co-composer he had been searching for a long time.

Max was influenced by various styles including not only melodic metal but by classic rock and even The Beatles. That made new material more complicated although the music still preserved a huge amount of melodies, which although became less naïve and obtained better structures.

The result you can hear on “Self-Mythology” which is an absolute masterpiece appeared from blood and tears of the band who spent hours and hours recording and re-recording, mixing and re-mixing, mastering and re-mastering. However the major person who was responsible for the recording process was Fedoseev, who created his own studio for this project and input a huge part of his life in the whole process. Unfortunately he decided to leave the band soon after the record was finished and the album was finally presented to the audience.

Let’s get back to the album itself. This work mainly contains material written during 2 years after Max Fedoseev joined Seducer’s Embrace in 2003. It represents a mixture of progressive and melodic death metal flourishing here and there with vivid melodies, complicated riffs and fantastic rhythmic structures. Being very technical, the music doesn't sound “mechanic” but attracts with very warm and soft sound at the same time remaining pure metal in its essence. Here I guess is the most important part of Fedoseev’s work who, remaining a talented guitarist and composer, managed to reach fantastic result in production as well. Max was also responsible for all lyrics focused on philosophical themes encouraged by eternal themes of the sense of the whole universe and human being. Therefore this album can be regarded as a mature and serious work accumulating all experience the musicians has obtained during their career and one can only envy the first time listener.