Legacy of Ashes

For those who don’t know, Sinister is an old school death metal act from the Netherlands. While certainly not as notable as fellow countrymen Asphyx, they’ve made some damn good albums such as Cross the Styx and Diabolical Summoning. If anything, those two albums alone made this band worth something. Their music has always stayed true to the death metal tradition, however never quite achieving the level of excellence that many other bands of the time did achieve. To me, Sinister is pretty much the epitome of “good but not great” death metal. This is the kind of music that I have absolutely no problem listening to, but if given the choice, there are hundreds of other albums I’d put on before I’d even consider a Sinister album. Well, Sinister recently released a new album, Legacy of Ashes, and I have to say, this album tries to continue the trend of just being “good,” but ultimately fails.

When I say that this album tries to be “good,” I mean that it is completely unadventurous, by-the-books death metal that also happens to be completely unimpressive in any way, shape, or form. Sure, there are some nice riffs here and there. These are the kinds of riffs that Sinister has always used. But here, they sound a bit more bland than usual. That, combined with a collection of bad and boring riffs (that main riff in ‘The Enemy of My Enemy’ is one of the worst culprits for both bad and boring), makes for a genuinely uninteresting guitar performance. The drums just do what generic death metal drums almost always do–blastbeat and double bass kick away. There’s no interesting variation on this at all. Most of my favorite death metal bands find ways to take these staple techniques and incorporate slight adjustments to them to make individual rhythms particularly interesting. None of that is present here. Yawn.

My main criticism of this album, however, is the utterly awful production. Everything about this album sounds incredibly sterile to the point of extreme annoyance. The drums are clicky as fuck, and the guitar just sounds neutered. There is no life to either of them whatsoever, especially compared to the really good sound each had on an album like Diabolical Summoning. This is the guitar sound that most mainstream death metal albums seem to be moving towards, and frankly, it’s sickening. Any riffs that could have been considered good are completely marred by this disgusting guitar sound. Of course, this album has no dynamic range whatsoever and is clipped to hell, as is the general trend for modern music, but even that is taken to an extreme here. I honestly can’t believe that there are people out there who not only tolerate this sterile sound, but actually enjoy it.

Overall, what we have here is a really boring, inoffensive album with a few good riffs scattered throughout and some shit-tastic, sterile, and loud production. There really isn’t much more to be said about the music at all. Don’t bother with this album. Instead, go back and stick to Cross the Styx and Diabolical Summoning if you’re a death metal veteran and haven’t heard any of Sinister’s music yet. If you’re new to death metal, spend your time on the “greats” of the genre and save those Sinister albums for later.

Written for http://thenumberoftheblog.com/

Sinister might not have produced the very best output in the Dutch death metal legacy, but I'd never deny that they've been the most consistent band hailing from that scene. Their 9th full-length album, Legacy of Ashes, is yet another example of why the band has become synonymous with reliability, an unending titan of forceful butchery that is almost always guaranteed to deliver a reasonable and focused effort, even through what seems to be an ever shifting roster of musicians (no change here from the previous full-length The Silent Howling in 2008, but after recording this they've already hired on a new bass player in Creepmime's Joost Van der Graaf).

Legacy of Ashes features all of the hallmark blasting and punching brutality they've celebrated from their early 90s classics, but with a notable element of thrashing abandon in the riffs that dominated efforts like 1998's Aggressive Measures. I'd almost compare this to the reunion effort Resurrection Macabre from countrymen Pestilence, only that album was more mechanical and repetitious, while this cranks up the aggression, Aad's gruff gutturals sounding similar in their delivery to Patrick Mameli's latest assaults. The material ranges from rapid, atmospheric hostility in "The Sin of Sodomy" or "Into the Blind World" to a few more primal, groove oriented tracks with some savage mute storms that fall somewhere between Slayer and Vader, ala "The Enemy of My Enemy" or "Legacy of Ashes" itself. Some of the more impressive constructions lie deeper into the playtime, like the battering of "The Hornet's Nest" with its taut and reckoning death/thrash outbreaks, or "Righteous Indignations" with its discordant, arching rhythms, but it's consistent enough throughout.

The songs do tend to lack truly killer individual guitar riffs that will sucker your speakers into cyclic masturbation, but on the whole I'd say you get a good, sore neck from this effort, more so than its direct predecessor at least. A few of their albums have lapsed into monotony, but Legacy of Ashes feels slightly more distinct; some clear variation in the tracks, yet still enough of the straight forward components that most have come to associate with Sinister through their 20+ years of existence when they're looking to stand directly in harm's way. No punches are pulled here, it's just tough as nails death metal without indulgent virtuosic tendencies or pedestrian wanking, and likely worth hearing if you're a fan of the band's last decade of material, or their related projects like Infinited Hate, Houwitser or Supreme Pain.

-autothrall
http://www.fromthedustreturned.com