Diaries from the Gallows

To sum this entire album up, it's more than a little disappointing. The only review of this album was 93%, so naturally I expected good things, especially when the music is clearly described in that review as being high-quality melodic death metal. I'll admit that the bands I choose to listen to are fairly mainstream, but I really don't see how this can be seen as one of the most underrated bands in the genre. In all honesty they're nowhere near the quality of some other melodeath bands that are actually severely underrated. Let's go through this problem one step at a time and find where we've gone wrong.

One of the main problems is that I'm not sure that I can actually call this melodic death metal. It's hard to say why, but it's not really as heavy as melodeath should be. After all, it's called melodic death metal. Clue's in the name, it's supposed to be powerful. This album is lacking that kick though, the one thing that put me off of melodic heavy metal. It's not missing too much in terms of melodies, and if anything actually goes overboard in that department, but it's still not likable. It just sounds too much like core, I just find that it detracts from the genre that I expected to find here. If I say that it sounds like chug, gap, chug, gap, it's fairly obvious that there are influences of core in it. I don't despise all metalcore and deathcore bands in existence, but if I wanted to listen to that I wouldn't have searched for melodeath bands.

Let's look at the actual musicianship next. You can quite clearly see that they've got some talent in them as nothing is played exceptionally badly, but everything has flaws. The drums are fairly basic and don't add much to the mix, the guitars - as previously mentioned - feature too much of a core influence for me to like them for what they're trying to do, the electronics are the bit that makes the melodies sound overdone, and the vocals are good when they're used for growling but not so much when the guy's singing. Occasionally the band does come together quite well, such as on No Place Darker. Other than the occasional glimpse of something enjoyable though, there isn't really anything to comment on.

19821268 who wrote the other review praised Standards of Rebellion very, very highly (stating that it was the best melodeath song he'd ever heard), but unfortunately I don't share his opinion. I find that it sums up the album very well, too much going on in terms of melodies on the electronics but not enough force behind the guitars to make anything really stand out. They sound like they're meant to be pretty strong, but for some reason they just don't feel that way. The drums are your typical copy and paste kind of job, nothing original (not that there's much you can do on a drum-kit that hasn't been done before) and the vocals aren't going to fix a song in this genre by themselves. In all honesty there are countless better melodic death metal tracks out there, from mainstream like Children of Bodom and Arch Enemy to lesser-known bands such as Karkaos and Bloodshot Dawn. I'd recommend any one of those bands before this one.

Maybe the fact that this band seems so misclassified is causing me to view them in a harsher light, but nothing here stands out. The music is actually fairly plain for the most part, very few fancy hooks finding their way into the album at all. Sometimes the keyboard or whatever else is lurking in the background can manage to breath some life into the tracks, but not on this record. It all sounds pretty similar and there isn't much to separate one song from the next.

Best tracks are hard to choose due to the sheer lack of originality, but I'd probably say No Place Darker and I, Enemy if I absolutely had to pick the best ones. Everything else though feels a bit like something from the lower end of a real high-quality album. I'm afraid to say that I disagree entirely with the rating that they received from my fellow metalhead 19821268. They're not going to get anything like that from me.

Melodic death metal is often looked down upon by metalheads because of its huge popularisation. Well, I agree it is a damn shame about all the crappy bands popping up everywhere, but you gotta accept brilliance when you see it. Eventide is that rare brilliant gem. Diaries from the Gallows is a melodic death metal album akin in style and sound to Dark Tranquillity, Insomnium and Mors Principium Est.

Diaries from the Gallows comes close to achieving what the great names in melodic death have given us, overall it's not a perfect album but the songs that stand out really do stand out. Standards of Rebellion (THE greatest melodic death metal song every created in my opinion) is one of those songs that remind me why I bother searching for new melodic death bands to listen to. The lyrics, vocals and music are perfectly integrated and the overall epic and aggressive feel of the song really gets me going.

There are a few average songs on this album of which I can't praise the musicianship, that doesn't mean that they weaken the album as a whole. In fact I'd go so far as to say that the transition from brilliance to mediocrity throughout this album makes it so great. The poorer songs on the album contrasted to the brilliance of the others really makes listening to those brilliant songs so much more... well, brilliant.

The transition from harsh to clean vocals on some of the songs work great (This Curse). The clean vocals accompanied by acoustic instrumentation then followed by harsh vocals and loud electric instrumentation are magnificent and definitely worth a listen (Confinement).

Overall it's an album that any melodic death fan should try and get their hands on. The good definitely overpower the bad parts.


Songs that really stand out: Standards of Rebellion, Killing What Can't Be Handled and The Skeleton Who Sold It's Skin