Jewish Juice – Soaring Above Death (2009)

After listening to Italy’s Jewish Juice second release “Hidden Into Rotten… With a Black Flame of Light” we were very interested to listen if the band’s talent was going to be consolidated into creating a better release than “Hidden Into Rotten”. For our general surprise the band has done a great job in maturing and crafting their own sound and not needing to throw a bunch of shit together in order to sound brutal or different. With “Soaring Above Death” we get 5 songs that really show what this band is capable off.

In “Soaring Above Death”, the band has come to terms and decided to go with a Black Metal foundation that has Death Metal influences, but it’s never chaotic and badly constructed like on some songs of their previous release. The vocals still vary between growls and BM screams, but they feel more uniform and never get to be obnoxious.

A very interesting fact that we notice with this release is that the odd numbered songs are the longest and the best on this album. And funny enough they feature a clearer Black Metal influence than their even numbered counterparts. The band has stopped using relentless aggression just for the sake of being brutal, and now they focus more on the melody behind the songs (“Acid Tears” is an example of this). The musicianship in this release is considerably better than before.

The band is now showing better songwriting chops since 3 of the tracks are over five minutes (and good). However, the band still has two filler songs that are very short and we feel that the album could have done without “Human Ferocity”. Musically the band has improved considerably since “Hidden Into Rotten” since the melodies and structures behind the longer songs are very solid and create near perfect songs.

We must say the riffing is very good, the bass guitar line is very present and adds greatly to the music. The drumming is still as tight as always and ready to blast when needed. The vocals are the same as in their last release, but the band got better at deciding when to use the combination of growls and screams. We think that if the band focused more on their BM aspect and drop their DM influences it would help them greatly in order to clean up their sound.

In general “Soaring Above Death” is a very solid release that will surely help put Jewish Juice in the Metal map. If the band keeps improving we wouldn’t be surprised if they get signed in the next few years.

Release: 2009

Country: Italy