Kheros

The genre tag they defined themselves as is wrong. They are blackened power metal. Now, for their genre, I would not give them huge marks at all for Death/Black stuff, but I'm going to rate them on their music. I admit, their vocals sounds very Children Of Bodom-ish, but hey... is that really that bad of a thing? Yes most people won't swallow that very well; but if you like Children Of Bodom, check this out!

Whats good about this album? Well, it is not a Children Of Bodom ripoff. Yeah, there is the power feeling guitar, and the vocals that sound like Alexi but harsher. Though the real prize here is the lack of keyboard wankery. In fact, there is seldom any keyboard. If they do have a keyboard, it was all done in the studio, or they just pre-play it. Furia did have a keyboardist at one point, but at this moment in time their band is keyboardless. So why is that good? That means they focus on solos. Yeah there is the occasional atmospheric "Aaaaahhhh" choir part, but nothing like DragonForce at least.

The guitars are catchy in certain parts. I find this very melodic in certain songs like Errare Humanum Est, but do not confuse this album for melodic metal. There is a lot of raw aggressiveness laced with some melo-riffs. Some guitar parts sound very fluent, some sound okay, but nothing is forced which is what I enjoy. The drums are somewhat technical (in fact, I found a few drum riffs that were very similar to Sean Reinert's off of "Human" by Death). There is a bass which actually plays great lines. I hate albums with no bass, or inaudible bass unless the band can make up for it.

Overall, the songs are fluent, there is harsh vocals with clean ones occasionally (See Dogma's Fall). I recommend this to people looking for some aggressive, yet not blinding fast, metal. Do not come here expecting fuzzy production or atmosphere. A great treat is finding the nice interludes of acoustic masterpieces (Isolement is a great song)! It is evident the guitarists have good knowledge under their belt on how to make a proper melody while holding a rough edge. In conclusion: Do not come here expecting black metal. Do not expect death metal, and by Death metal I define it as Death, Monstrosity, and maybe Cannibal Corpse. There is no gutteral vocals, and the vocals sound just like Alexi Laiho (CoB) + Arioch (Marduk) on vocals... fused into one! My rating of 87 is due to how well the songs flow together, the amount of variety (The instrumental song is fucking amazing), and the length of the album is just perfect for most... not too long and not too short.

It was the midnight hours, when I felt need of something aggressive and concussing. Furia seems to be a good choice, because the symbiosis between black and death metal is always something fresh. At the beginning of the album I decided, that I hadn't hit the first song and that's why there's no intro and it sounds quite unadequate. After I verified if I had mistaken it came out that this rough beginning is just a speciality of the album. There is obviously the conviction that the first impression is the most important for a high valuation, but unfortunately that's not true. The lively music came like a bolt from the blue, but that's absolutely not the right way to win the fans. The first 10 seconds are enough to be noticed a similarity with Children of Bodom. At least the harsh vocal in the songs reminds too much of Alexi Laiho's tongue-twisters. It was necessary to make sure again if I'm listening to Furia. After that some kind of choir starts singing and contributes the non-black-metal nature of this music... and then the jingle of industrial/electronic programming broke the rest of my remaining hopes of a real black/death metal sound. I have also to make mention of the annoying heavy/power metal quitar riffs (that you may be came across by children of bodom). The most of the tracks are wonderful trash metal songs, but broken by melodic tunes. Somethimes the vocal is really hard to be mistaken with a non-trash-metal one; we can also enjoy the clear vocal as in an example in the last song. The most impressive track is undoubted Errare Humanum Est. It affords us a great opportunity to make ourselves familiar with the work of the band Soulfly. There is one more unexpected surprise - the fifth and the seventh tracks with their gothic doom sound. Probably I'm in luck, because I don't speak French and I can't understand the social and emotional contents in the lyrics.
I'll leave you to make further conclusions about this album by yourself. May be somebody (except for the band members) would claim, that Furia can be classified under the title "new school black metal", but I wasn't successful in revealing any characteristics of black/death metal genre in their music. In spite of all I wouldn't rate "Kheros" for 0, because these guys are not bad musicians, they just don't know, that not every hard-definable music is black metal.