The Scent of Malevolence

I had gotten this album straight from the bands hands at some Metal Fest, they were dressed up in some leather, blood, stage paint, and some spikes so I figure this may be alright since they seemed to be pretty cool. I missed the show, had to see a better band, but lets just say good thing I didnt have to sit through this shit.

The music on this album is according to the band, "Classicly driven black metal in the old school vein", my fucking ass. Sounds more like weak wannabe wankery ( I mean thats just pathetic in and of itself but no theres more ), any riff you could write, just dumb musical ideas, weak guitar sound, shitty vocals, bad druming in that unfitting beats are used, and the double bassing is annoying, need I say more. The keyboard instrumentals are good if you are sleeping, but otherwise get boring. The riffs on here, on a whole, seem stagnant, plastic, and nothing more then useless music.

Heres why:

From the first riff, which opens with keys playing a melody which is repeated to death, and highly annoying (like the rest of the album), layerd under some bass melodies (also keys) you get an overwhelming feeling to hit stop. Slowly fading out and into another bad key riff (the second song) with words spoken over them, bad drum fills, and then breaks into the powerless (in almost every way) shitty sound of the band. This would be about when you decide if you like this, or not. Certainly not for ever one.

The vocals are quite possibly the worst aspect to this entire record, though the guitars do stick out in comparing limpness. The range from horribly done deep death metal style vocals to over the top high pitched raspyness, even lamer talking over some parts, and clean vocals that show the reason some bands just shouldnt is quite unimpressive. I was not looking for a cd with these qualities, but for fans of Old Mans Child, CoF, and bands that are similiar, this may be for you. The patterns used by the vocals, in any voice, sound boring, building to nothing, cheap imitations of power and great structure (like most riffs).

Slight atempts at epicness(failing miserably), horrible vocals, infinite other small little touches that single out this disc from being shitty to a far greater title of utter bastardly, spiritless, tepid worthlessness you probably dont want to hear. Repetition in music is good when done well, but these guys just sound entirely boring, and cheesy. Headaches my accompany listening to this album.