Night in Gales – Five Scars (2011)

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.

The album title track “Five Scars” delivers a very powerful and brutal track, filled with excellent guitar riffing and tight drumming. The vocals are a bit overdone in this track, but the overall aggression is very present and the track delivers heaps of excellent riffs. Sounding a bit like Dark Tranquility, “Void Venture” delivers more head banging sections, and at this rate our necks will be very sore once we finish listening to this release.

After a nice cello intro, the emotional “The Tides of November” fully explodes into a very melodic and yet aggressive track. This song is by far our favorite one due to the nice changes provided by the cellos between the well crafted melodic sections with clean vocals. For more riffing attacks, “Life Denied”, “Endtrip”, “Whiteout” and “A Mouthful of Death” will have you entertained for quite a while. Changing things up a bit, “Bloodsong” is a more experimental piece that has some nice tempo changes and very sections.

For the most part “Five Scars” is a pretty good release, Night in Gales has made a very strong comeback and people should take notice of this excellent release. There are a few parts here and there that make this album a bit repetitive and tedious (vocals), but just listening to the riffing and the nice flow of this release with the cello passages makes it a worthy purchase. If you like Melodic Death Metal and never heard of the band, “Five Scars” is a very good opportunity for you to start following Night in Gales.

Release: November 4th, 2011

Country: Germany