Empatic – Gods of Thousand Souls (2010)

Hailing from Poland, today we have Empatic and their super catchy Thrash infused Death Metal. The band’s debut album shows a promising band with an interesting sound and potential to be even better.

The album starts with the brutal “Green Mile”, since the first 20 seconds the band let’s you know they mean business. An interesting thing to notice since this song is the band’s Melodic DM/Groove influences that make this release even more interesting to listen to. With “G.O.T.S” the band goes into full Death Metal mode and this song provides us with catchy hooks, powerful drumming and strong vocals.

The variety of vocal styles (clean spoken parts, growls, harsh screams) used through the album make it less linear and keeps the listener fully engaged. Songs that seem very straight forward like “False Friend”, “The Game”, and “Tomorrowland” actually hide little elements here and there that showcase the band’s creativity, allowing the album to have high replay value.

Our favorite song of this album has to be “Vs”. In this track the band’s DM chops are put to the test with slower paced sections that are both aggressive and melodic in nature. The best part for us has to be the melodic section after the 4 minute mark, this section shows the versatility and abilities of the band to break out of the linear model that DM songs usually have.

“Fulfilled Dreams” is the next song that grabbed our attention since it seems to depart from the traditional DM songs in this album. The band’s abilities to craft melodic songs are very good and this song is the perfect example. The riffing and solos in this song are probably some of the best of the album.

The album’s closing track “Enola Gay”, is an excellent cover of a British synth-pop song from OMD (look it up…. its total shit). However, the band manages to take a creative approach to the song and nails the opening synth sections (from the original one) with guitar parts.

In general, we have to say that “Gods of Thousand Souls” is a very solid debut album from Empatic. While the band’s sound is not quite perfect, it is very engaging and excellently crafted. They might not be re-inventing the wheel, but they are playing some kick-ass songs and you should definitely check them out.

Release: December 2010

Country: Poland