Deathless metal
On the back of this CD it says death metal and on the front in blood red letters it says death metal plus pictures of skulls and ravens. Then the first track kicks in with a fast riff kicking your door in closely followed by the screaming vocals of Jimmie Strimell.
It's at this point that my face creases up in confusion as at the end of the first verse it goes all Killswitch engage with a melodic chorus. In fact the first minute of this album is the closest it gets to being like death metal, the rest is a cross between In Flames and Killswitch engage. I haven't heard Nightrages earlier two albums so they could be straight down the line death metal for all I know but this album has more melody than would probably be allowed in death metal and the odd acoustic bit, also in evidence are sing along bridges and choruses. Shouldn't be allowed.
So forget the cover and press release, in fact press releases are usually best forgotten anyway and we'll take this album on it's more screamcore footing and a fine piece of music it is too.
Nightrage are Greek/Swedish melodic screamcore which is a first for me anyway. They have produced a hard hitting but melodic album that had me singing along to tracks like 'Reconcile' and 'Scars of the past'. Such are the hooks embedded in these songs that although they never flinch from being extreme and cutting edge they still retain a strong narrative that grabs the listener and drags them along whether they like it or not.
The production is handled by Jacob Hansen who has produced Mercenary, Hatesphere and Fear My Thoughts and a fine job he has made of this as the guitars are brutal and the drums like the powerhouse they should be for an album of this intensity. He has also brought out the best from singer Jimmie as his impressive voice is given space to expand without overwhelming the musical hurricane going on behind him.
There are twelve finely and brilliantly crafted tracks on this album and each one has it's own quality to recommend it, if you like the afore mentioned bands then this will slot very nicely into your cd collection, it is a well recorded and superbly played and written piece of extreme metal that very occasionally wanders into death metal territory. Death metal it isn't but quality metal it is.