Melodic Death Metal

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    Human Sculpture – Our World / Torn Down (2011)

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    Out of the hundreds of bands that come out of Finland every year it is very hard to differentiate the very good ones from the good ones (apparently there are very few shitty bands in that country!). Human Sculpture is one of the very good ones indeed and with their three song EP “Our World / Torn Down”, they deliver 15 minutes of intense Melodic Death Metal combined with some Thrash and Modern Metal influences.

    Sounding a bit like Kalmah combined with Exodus and some Gojira influences; “Deconstruction” delivers hard hitting riffs and very powerful drums. The dual screams approach is very powerful and packs a lot of power, making the songs very aggressive and yet melodic and well crafted. The riffing assault in this song is top notch and the Modern Metal influences are very nicely incorporated into things and do not sound annoying at all.

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    Night in Gales – Five Scars (2011)

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    After making us wait for 10 years since their last full-length release, Night in Gales returns in full force with 13 tracks of excellent Melodic Death Metal with a more melodic and dynamic edge tan before. With their traditional Swedish Melodic Death Metal intact, the band incorporates a few surprises here and there in order to update their sound and kick some as.

    Opening with the cello instrumental “Epitaph”, the band nicely sets the mood for their aggressive ‘real’ opener “This Neon Grave”. In this track, the impeccable riffing style of Jens and Frank Basten delivers a very catchy and powerful guitar driven track. The vocals of Bjoern Gooses keep up very nicely with the music providing a multi-faceted approach, including some very effective clean vocals. Behind the melodic nature of “Days of the Mute”, the band delivers some sections that are very similar to Eternal Tears of Sorrow’s passages with clean vocals and melodic guitar sections.

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    Cipher System – Communicate the Storms (2011)

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    Being huge fans of Melodic Death Metal, we are always excited when a good band finally returns with an impressive release. Cipher System’s last release was back in 2004 with “Central Tunnel 8”, and with “Communicate the Storms” they have returned with a very effective Melodic Death Metal sound that can easily position them among the best in 2011.

    Featuring ex-members of Anata and Nightrage, Cipher System delivers 10 tracks of unpretentious Melodic DM in a similar fashion to genre legends: Dark Tranquility. There are almost no fancy elements in this release, just a solid foundation of catchy riffing, atmospheric keyboards, tight drumming and very direct vocals. There is no need to re-invent the wheel, and Cipher system excels at creating a very traditional but effective sound that will appeal to any fan of the genre.

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    Insomnium – One for Sorrow (2011)

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    As one of the most expected releases of 2011, today we have Insomnium’s latest release: “One for Sorrow”, a truly sublime piece of work that will be nearly impossible to improve upon. Featuring a mixture of majestic melodic passages, depressive emotions, skillful instrumentation, and powerful vocals, “One for Sorrow” is definitely the finest Insomnium release to date and a near perfect release in terms of Melodic Death Metal.

    Opening with the hypnotic momentum builder “Inertia”, the band quickly delivers their signature weeping guitars followed by Niilo Sevänen’s perfect growls. With such a momentum builder, the album starts on a very high note. “Through the Shadows” delivers a more unified riffing structure of pure Insomnium’s trademark sound; this creates the very melodic and dense atmosphere that we all love about the band. Here we are treated to some clean vocals that add an even more dramatic edge to this beautiful song.

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    Deadend in Venice – See Your On The Ground (2011)

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    As just another female fronted metal band, today we have the Germans from Deadend in Venice, a band that claims to play Melodic Death Metal, but sometimes falls into the Mallcore scene. We can’t really say the music is bad, since the musicians are very good and some of the songs are catchy, but just the whole concept and idea has been done to death that we can probably pick 10 cd’s at random from our promo collection and find at least 4 bands that are the same.

    Opening with “Hate Sweet Hate”, we have very traditional (but not bad) riffing and male screams (that are not to our full liking), everything is pretty standard and then the female vocals come. While the female vocals are not bad, they are pretty standard and sound almost exactly like Francine Boucher from Echoes of Eternity, in fact the music of Deadend in Venice sounds a lot like said band minus the progressive elements.

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    World Under Blood – Tactical (2011)

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    Formed by CKY’s front-man/guitarist Deron Miller and super drummer Tim Yeung, today we have Wonder Under Blood and their debut full-length release “Tactical”. As you can tell, this seems like an odd combination but it actually works wonders and this debut release is a fine example of different sounding Melodic Death Metal. As we mentioned, World Under Blood does not sound like your typical Swedish Melodic DM or your commercial Melo-Death bands you have in North America these days. The band has their own different sound and nicely mixes brutality with brilliant melodic sections.

    As you can tell from the opening track “A God Among the Waste”, the band is not f’ing around and delivers powerful riffing with very well crafted drumming. The clean/growl vocal approach sounds a bit odd at the beginning, but it quickly grows on you. The music reminds us of the band Godless Rising, but with a bit less brutality. The quality of the solos never decreases through this release and on tracks like “Into the Arms of Cruetly”, “Dead and Still in Pain” and “Purgatory Dormitory”, they nicely highlight sections of very well crafted songs.

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    Nightrage – Insidious (2011)

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    Overlooking the fact that Olof Mörck from Amaranthe infamy plays guitar in this band, Nightrage’s fifth full-length album is actually a few steps up from their previous riff-tastic offering “Wearing a Martyr's Crown”. “Insidious” features 15 songs of very well crafted Melodic Death Metal in the Gothenburg style. However, what makes this release better than their previous albums is the guest appearances by Apollo Papathanasio of Firewind, Tomas Lindberg of At The Gates/ Lock Up, Gus G of Ozzy Osbourne/ Firewind, Tom S. Englund of Evergrey, and John K of Biomechanical, each of them providing something different to each of the songs they participate in.

    After the traditional intro song, the album opens with solid riffing in the track “Delirium of the Fallen”. Here you can easily notice the similarities with the band’s earliest work, but when Apollo’s vocals kick in, the whole vibe of the song is very nicely changed and a very well crafted solo capitalizes this vocal change. On the album title track, the band goes for a typical drumming/guitar onslaught that made countless Swedish Melodic DM bands popular, but once again Tomas Lindberg’s guest appearance is what saves the day for this song.

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    Euphoreon – Euphoreon (2011)

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    After their very impressive demo “Before the Blackened Sky”, Euphoreon returns with their crushing self-released and self-titled debut album. All fans of (old) Children of Bodom, Moonsorrow, Turisas, and similar should be keeping an eye out for this very well produced album.

    Featuring re-vamped versions of the three songs presented in the demo, this new release adds five more tracks of brilliant musicianship and excellent combination of elements that have made the previously mentioned bands very successful. The song “Before the Blackened Sky” shows the wide palette of influences the band has and it also gives a very nice intro of what is to come in this release.

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    Scar Symmetry – The Unseen Empire (2011)

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    After their overly formulaic “Dark Matter Dimensions”, the band returns with a very interesting release with “The Unseen Empire”. It seems that the band somewhat changed a bit their ‘musical formula’ and now diluted their sound with some Male-fronted Gothic Rock/Metal influences.

    While the traditional epic chorus sections are a staple of this album, we also have different sounding melodies that make this band… well… more melodic. The technical brilliance of the band is also pushed back a bit and while we do get some brilliant guitar sections, the focus is more on the catchiness of the songs.

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    Before the Dawn – Deathstar Rising (2011)

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    Multi-instrumentalist Tuomas Saukkonen returns with another excellent Before the Dawn release. Fusing Melodic Death Metal and Gothic Metal, Before the Dawn has been gaining popularity over the years and with “Deathstar Rising”, they set the bar even higher.

    Besides Tuomas brilliant songwriting skills, the bass guitar and clean vocal talents of Lars Eikind greatly complement the band’s sound. Not being to ‘weak’ for regular Metal people, and without being extremely harsh, “Deathstar Rising” is a release that fits right in the middle between aggressive and melodic Metal released.

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