System Divide – The Conscious Sedation (2010)

Today we have System Divide, a band that plays a very interesting mix of Gothic Metal elements with Melodic Death Metal/Deathcore foundations. Featuring Sven de Caluwé of Aborted fame and Miri Milman (Distorted, Orphaned land) on vocals, you know you will have a very nice contrast between sweet female voices and demonic growls.

With a very similar style than Deadlock, the band seamlessly merges elements and creates a very solid melodic yet brutal album with “The Conscious Sedation”. It’s very interesting that such release will appeal people from both the Melodic Metal community and the ‘Modern’ Metal (i.e. Deathcore) section, since it features elements that will please both sides of the fence.

The guitar work on “The Conscious Sedation” is top notch, both melodic sections and the crushing riffing parts are of equal quality and will have people headbanging in a matter of minutes. Songs like “Lethargy” and “(N)ether” are the prefect combination of such contrasts is the music. The drumming is equally impressive accelerating to top speed in the most brutal sections and keeping a nice tempo for the ‘slower’ passages.

One of the best elements of the band is the combination of Miri’s clean vocals, her singing style is very refreshing, and on songs like “Echos” (especially in the chorus section) her voice is just hypnotizing. The vocal layering adds extra punch to the vocal melodies of Miri and gives a more rich sounding experience. In the male vocals department, Sven is great at shouting, growling, you name it. His work with Aborted speaks for it self.

The flow of the album is very nice since all songs are very balanced, featuring the perfect combination of lush keyboard arrangements, epic vocal lines, and a massive guitar/bass/drum foundation. Highlights of this album are: “Hollow”, “Echoes”, “Lethargy” and “Repentiforget”.

In general terms, “The Conscious Sedation” is not your average pussy ‘beauty and the beast” album, it features intense guitar work, massive drumming and an overall aggressiveness that is not found in my other places. The album’s production allows everything to shine perfectly and will cause your speakers to burst. A very recommendable release that will surely get this band noticed very quickly.

Release: September 14th, 2010

Country: USA