Souls of Damnation

Tchort and crew have had quite a productive decade with this death metal project. I feel as if I've blinked and they're already on their 5th full length. Blood Red Throne offers a blend of both US brutality and the European skill for riffing power, with a dash of melody. Souls of Damnation is a decent, if not groundbreaking release. Few of the individual tracks stand out enough to be memorable, but if you find yourself in the mood for some solid headbanging and reasonably composed death metal that won't bore you to pieces, it's worth a go.

The album is incredibly consistent throughout its 9 tracks (11 if you have the limited edition). "The Light, the Hate" opens with a punishing riff and some thrashing verse rhythms. This is Vald's 2nd album as vocalist, and he has a blunt and directy deliver which fits the style, but never exceeds the grasp of the material. Which is perfectly alright here, because while I found myself briefly slamming my head against my desk for "Throne of Damnation", "Your Cold Flesh" and "Ten Steps to Purgatory", nothing on the album seems to rise beyond pleasant and well written to the realm of an immediate desire to re-listen. As for the bonus tracks, "Manifest of Lies" is new whereas "Affiliated from the Suffering" is a remake from the album of the same name.

Soundwise, Souls of Damnation excels. The tones here are crushing but clear, with every nuance of the guitars directed at the forefront. The leads burn through the rhythms like hot knives in butter, and the drums and bass create a concrete foundation, as in: bricks hitting you in the face. Truly, the album is successful in most aspects, it just doesn't have the timeless riff power to stick its neck out from the pack.

-autothrall
http://www.fromthedustreturned.com

Alright this has gotta be one of the most controversial death metal bands out of Norway. First of all when I think Norway I automatically think overrated black metal. This is an established modern semi-technical, semi-brutal death metal band that anyone could swear on a first listen that they are from Florida. They've reached their perfect sound and signature with Altered Genesis back in 2005, which to me represents what could arguably be the best death metal album from Norway period. Then they released Come Death in 2007 with a change in line up: Vald replaced Mr. Hustler on vocal duties. Not to compare the two because Hustler definitely has the upper hand here, we've all got accustomed to his flawless death metal growls and gutturals, but people need to give the new guy a break. I personally think he does an amazing job with this band, seeing how aggressive and intricate their music is. I was a bit skeptical about him at first, but Come Death grew on me bit by bit and now it's become one of my favorite records from 2007.

Then came Souls Of Damnation. I didn't know what to think of it at first, when I heard The Light, The Hate, first thing that crossed my mind was "this is such good fucking death metal!". Without straying far from their initial formula, in this album they carried so much melody and aggression at the same time, which something very hard to achieve. The drums are still as heavy as ever, Dod's song writing and guitar skills got even slightly better than on the previous record, and the bass is outstanding as ever. This is one of those death metal bands where you always notice the bass licks and sweeps before anything else. Again Vlad did a flawless job on the vocals, this time even a better one. The patterns and arrangements ,without being too complex, fit their whole sound and style perfectly. I would go ahead and break down the whole album song by song but I find that to be useless. Even though there is variety on here, all songs are so solid and so well written and executed there is no point going over them one by one. Each and everyone of them, feels like a kick in the teeth. Heavy drums and bass, blistering guitar work, perfectly executed vocals and excellent song writing. It's fast, it's heavy, it's death metal to the bone, and the more I listen to it the harder I headbang. Seriously, this is for all fans of no-bullshit, straight to the point death metal.

People usually argue, after a band reaches their peak, that the later albums don't live up to the high bar set by their "best", in this case Altered Genesis. But to me a band must evolve while sticking to the things that made that album their best, but also by bringing new things to the formula. Blood Red Throne is one of the very few bands who pull that off, and never fail to catch my attention and entertain my picky ears. I still haven't had the blast to see them live and I hope I will soon, otherwise i will have to fly out to Europe to hang out with them. Souls Of Damnation is one of the best albums of 2009, and if you like European death metal that sounds like Florida death metal then you're in for a treat.