Praise God!! Finally a Melodic Death / Black Metal band that I can enjoy.
It seems how hard it is to find Melodic Death Metal in the Christian
scene.
I bought this album hopiong to find good black metal, but what I got
was beyond my wildest dreams.
Imagine Melodic Death Metal combined with an occasional shrill Black
Metal, realy good growl vocals,
if only there were more versatile vocalist like Miika Partala, more
bands like Deuteronomium!
more music like Deuteronomium. I can't believe my ears...I can't be
listening to this kinda music...it's too good to be true.
The opening track "Street Corner Queen" got me hook on this band, great
melodic death, straight out riffs with the great vocals, what more can
you ask for in a band??? The only other band that I'm so impressed with
lately is Ebony Tears from Sweden. But Deuteronomium beats Ebony Tears
anyday. Fast pounding on the drums fast crunchy guitars will definately(
i guarentee) get you on your feet and start moshing alone in your room(imagine
that...haha how do you mosh with yourself?).
But sadly this song is only very short.
"Druglord" starts off with bass and vocals which sounds like the vocalist
is whining, but the shreiking that follows made me think that this powerful
voice belongs to a madman...one that don't take care of their vocal cords.
The whining/'don't care about your' vocals comes back in..with only the
madman sound WITH INTENSE GUITARS AND DRUMMING that comes back in the chorus....arggggggggggg
i'm going outta my mind!!!
"Spell of Hell" starts off with atmospheric keyboard/piano with short marching drum style...I would expect a instrumental for this, but wait...what's this??? It becomes a real crazy and intense black metal song. what else can Miika do with his vocals cords?!! Melodic black metal unlike the melodic black metal which focus on keyboards..this melodic track focus on the melodic(and real heavy) guitars. It slows down after some parts for sometime before reverting into the heavy and very intense riffs whichs fades out!!! Killer track!
"The Fall" another great blend of masterful shredding, pounding drums with the melody that set this band apart from the rest of the crowd. Very melodic and masterful stuff complete with shrieked vocals will make this a hot favourite among the Christian Scene. Clean vocals comes at the end of this song, great effect from shrieked to clean vocals.
"Empty Shell" sounds more like a hard rock/metal song which is a suprise.
I expected a whole album od melodic death, but this song is very nice IMO,
very nice melody again on the part of the song-writer. Nice breather from
all the heavy stuff..
It has a nice ring to it...singalong stuff =)
"Human Nature" kicks the album back on track on the melodic death path.
Fast vocals on top of trippy(skippy? jumpy?) guitars, which packs a
punch, trust me!
Slows down a while (again) which the vocals is just heard, and return
to the song which is common in melodic metal. Then it turns into a rap
song(??!!!) Hahahhahaa...it caught me the same way with the Dead Pharisee's
album. I'm laffing away...it then turns into reggae!!!!!!!!!!!!! Haha I
never thought this would happen on this album.
"Bonsai People" Really weird track. Funny distorted vocals, slow hip-hop sounding guitars, hey what's going on?? Hey the chorus comes in and this song transform magically into a killer tune. Another different style on this track. VERY different! "Black Raven" which comes after "Bonsai people" talks about the devil and how Christ came and defeated the devil(the black raven). Crunchy riffs dominate this song on quick drumming makes this an outstanding track.
"C.C.R" Christ Church Rising is what this C.C.R mean. It talks about the rapture and the last days. In the vein of the other Melodic Death songs.
"III" I think it's written like that, a mid-paced black metal track with clean-vocals effects to echo the shrill voice. But to my suprise it turns into gentle plucking of the acoustic guitar. I think to create a atmosphere for this track, by the way this track is in finnish, so I don't understand what is being sung/shrieked. I belive it is a worship/praise song to God.
The last track "Northern Praise" is a slow tune with enchanting female
vocals,
this girl's voice I believe is better than Anneke van Giersbergen of
The Gathering fame. Soothing voice.
This voice belongs to Eeva Vehniainen. Wow, this track is THE highlight
of the whole album!!!!
(note-the special thing about the lyrics of this song, is that the
lyrics are praise and worship material)
The bonus track " Blue Mountain" is taken from the Tribal Eagle EP.
Shieked vocals coupled with the same mesmerizing female vocals. In
spite of the vocals..
this track leans more into the melodic death than actual black metal
If you were to get only 1 album in 1998, this is the album to grab!
SCORE : 9.5 /10