In the Midst of Bloodied Soil

I don't normally get hung up on a band's image; attire, logo, artwork, and so on. But there are certain things bands do that just have to set off alarms. A band having a rose in their logo is one such thing.

In this "melodic death metal" band the only thing that is at all "death metal" is the drumming. The guitar riffs are normally too melodic sounding for their own good, bringing it beyond the borders of what is known as even melodic death metal. So, I'll stop beating around the bush - this band shows way too much influence from hardcore and metalcore bands.

Sure, the drumming is speedy, technical and there's ample blasts, even gravity blasts. And yes, there's some cool guitar work, mainly the duel leads. But that's all the positive things that can be said about the album.

It's often said that metal is about the riffs. And that is this albums main flaw. It doesn't really have many. There's so much duel leads going on sometimes, (which are only countered by chug-a-chug parts or an occasional breakdown) it sounds like they forgot to put in riffs at all. When there is a firm sense of riffage happening, it's too often whimpy emo sounding riffs, either that or the riffs just aren't solid. These riffs sound more like their on vacation, or crying in their bedroom than out to destroy the world.

The vocalist sounds like a copy of Arsis' vocalist. But not as good. There are keyboards hovering quietly in the background, which do nothing really. These keyboards are used in a couple interludes. The first interlude is very sombre but way too soon in the CD (why place an interlude on the third track?), and the second is annoying sappy emo sounding crap.

The songs lack any serious direct, and seem very amorphous. In moments like the beginning of The Coniferous War, the drummer tries to get so technical that he sounds like he's stumbling over himself, and it sounds just plain stupid. There is a lot of cool things going on here, but it's falls to pieces without having that solid foundation of riffage. If this band could put down solid riffage, steer clear of the sappy sounding junk, then place the technicality and musicianship back on top of it - they'd have something really impressive and marginally unique. I'm all for technicality, but this band is a perfect example of what can go wrong when you play technically when you can't adequately write a song or riff.