The Few Against Many – Sot (2009)

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The Few Against Many is one of the many bands that Christian Ãlvestam lends his pipes to, he also contributes on rhythm guitar on this release. This band from Sweden plays a very different Melodic Death Metal than most bands, but different is not always good.

“Sot” is a very short album (only 36 minutes), and it features a 8 songs that are very diverse in nature. This diversity I think is also the main problem of this album since all songs sound very disconnected like they were just thrown together to make a quick release.

Don’t get me wrong since the songs are well composed and pretty good technically, but there is no cohesion on this album at all, maybe on the lyrics, but most of them are in Swedish. Two of the songs lyrics were composed by Jonas Renske of Katatonia and Mikael Stanne of Dark Tranquility, and they are in English.

The music starts very Death Metal like and it transforms into Melodic Death Metal with the use of synth orchestrations and the guitar melodies. The songs sound fresh indeed but when put together they really don’t work for me, and I’m a big fan of the genre. The drumming of all songs is very good and compact, and some of the guitar melodies and solos are top notch. So like I said before the music is pretty solid, no problems in this department.

Another problem I have with this release is the duration, since I think paying for a 8 song, 36 minute album is not fair when there are plenty of very good (and long enough) releases you can get for the same price and with the same freshness (Skyfire’s Esoteric comes to mind).

Overall this album is a good novelty and a solid first release of a band with top notch musicians, but they can probably try better next time in making a cohesive album and write longer songs (or more).

Band: The Few Against Many Album: Sot
Label: Pulverised Records

Release: September 15, 2009

Official Site myspace
Genre: Melodic Death Metal

Country: Sweden

Rating: 83/100
Year: 

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