Undeceived

First foremost, before the music, let's mention the obvious and first factor with this band that so many like to debate and argue over. This band is a Christian band. It's sad that a band's personal beliefs can cause so much hysteria and trash-talk, rather than what the band offers to the music community. However, I will say that this band does a good job at walking the thin line of effectively representing their religious beliefs without being overly "preachy" (i.e. "Praise Jesus" this; "Praise Jesus" that; "Lets all love eachother"). Their lyrical substance is mostly comprised of the darker sides of life like depression, death, and struggle.

Now, with that out of the way, let's discuss the music:

This album is put together with some of the best production quality I have ever heard. The guitars, bass, drums, and vocals all have their presence and sound clean and effective without sounding over produced. You can clearly hear each distinct instrument and what they are offering to the overall mix, with each member of this band is extremely talented at their own instrument.

The album overall is a huge mix of different genres of metal. It is definitely and without objection, extreme metal, but classifying it is more hazy. I personally say that it is melodic death metal heavily fused with progressive metal and continual time changes. The vocals are fierce shrieks and low growls, while the guitars seamlessly flow through classical overtures, to thrash, to even jazzy sounding riffs. There is also a distinct element of black metal throughout the album, brought by string sections, heavily minor guitar progressions, and an overall depressing atmosphere.

Overall I give this album a 90% because it is a well executed album, with many memorable riffs and several fantastic songs. The only reason why I can't give this album the full 100% is the fact that some of the songs become monotonous and somewhat boring. They cover so much ground on the good songs that they do not leave much territory to explore on the "okay" songs. What you have is an album mostly filled with gems and a couple of track fillers. An overall must have!

I've always been a die-hard fan of this band, from Burial to even The Blueprint Dives. They always seem to be able to create the exact sound that they are attempting with their albums. Their signature use of instrumentation and composition is reminiscent in Undecieved and is unparalled by any of this band's previous work.

The first few tracks are beautifully done. Inferno and the title track are definitely two highlight tracks on the album, and are still on my all-time favorites list of metal songs. With classical intros, undying thrash aggression, clean vocals and melodies, and passionate guitar solos, the dynamic elements are substantial. The violin and cello usage is quite a change from Burial and Synergy, both previous Extol albums. The classical pieces add a more human element to the overall feel of the album, and allow for a beautiful listen.

Perhaps the most memorable thing about Undecieved is the fact that all instruments are recognized and everything is easy to hear. From bass guitar to harsh vocals, nothing is missed or set behind anything else. The songwriting is beautiful and heavy all at once, reminiscent of something like Opeth or Antestor.

The riffing and guitar work is intruiging, and drags attention away from the likes of lesser bands. Although not as technical or heavy as Necrophagist or Psycroptic, it still deserves recognition and at least a humble appreciation. Extol has always had a tendency to lean toward the more technical, progressive side of the metal genre, but with Undecieved, we see the darker and heavier side of Extol, which is definitely a change for the better.

The fact that this band is Christian turns the ears of many metalheads away simply because of it. But if it's truly metal, who gives a fuck? the lyrical concepts are both intelligent and spiritual. No generic "Christian" lyrics here, only ideas of struggle, sadness, and defeat. Sure, Jesus is mentioned, but a band's beliefs should not affect the listener. The music is all that truly matters.

One of the qualms that I have with this album, and the reason I gave it anything less than a perfect score is the repetitive nature of the album as the listener journeys into the latter half of the album. The songs are slow, dull, and drag themselves slowly along until the album is finished. In my opinion, everything after track five, Meadows of Silence, is not worth listening to. My metal nature makes me listen only to whole albums, but if that's not you, then I suggest only listening to the first few songs (Which are amazing).

In conclusion, I must say that this band and this album are still some of my all time favorites. I beg of you to give this one at least a dying chance or a slight listen. I promise that you will be instantly captivated by the harsh and melodic elements that interlace themselves so beautifully.

Extol is one of those bands that doesn't stick to one style of music for long. Sometimes its for the better, sometimes its for the worst. With Extol, it could either way since their latest cds have been very good. However, I think that Undeceived was definately their best.

Extol's sound on Undeceived is overall a lot heavier and darker than that of Burial, their previous offering. On Undeceived, Extol are still sticking to the technical, progressive death metal style of Burial but have taken to the max. The drumming on this cd is superb. This is in part because of the odd and unconvential style of David Husvik. Not only that but he is very fast too. The guitars and bass are technical to the max on this release. Some of the riffs are not even possible to follow along to and in some cases that could detract from how memorable the song is. But skill-wise it is amazing to listen to. The vocals are probably the low point on this release. This is mostly because Peter decided to layer his voice on just about every song. Since the vocals are so unrealistic and even a bit bad because of all the layering, this is the worst part of the cd. However, they did manage to give the vocals a very monsterous feel to them, which is kind of different from your run-of-the-mill death growler.

All the songs on here are good. There is not a single downer of the bunch. Each are different from the other which adds to the diversity of the cd. I hate it when songs on a cd are all similar and you cant tell them apart.

Overall, an awesome cd that should be owned by all metalheads, christian or not.

Extol falls under the delightful if not somewhat cursed genre of Christian metal. I say cursed because most Christian metal albums seem to fall under two categories.

Category 1: The band wants to play heavy music for their lord Jesus Christ, but also want to please their congregation. This means that they want to play a harsh type of metal such as black or death metal, but don't want to make music hating Christians pissed off.

Category 2: The band seems to have lost any slither of lyric writing and seem to fall under the 'Deicide lyrical' phase. This time though they take their lyrics from hymms and seem to repeat "Jesus loves you." over and over again which gets pretty damn annoying. (Yes I'm a Christian, but if I want to hear the Jesus loves me song I'll listen to it on the radio. Mmmkay thnks bye.)

Thankfully Extol doesn't fall under the second category since their lyrics are actually pretty intellegent. No what befalls the album "Undecieved" is that the album sounds too undone, unpolished, and as if though they were trying to please a local baptist convention.

If you listen carefully you can hear the moments throughout the album where Extol attempted to make this album black metal. Oh wait let me not offend the Satanists, I mean unblack metal, ok that's better. There are the typical fast thrash riffs in certain areas, and a few blastbeats. The vocalist did make use of the distorted black metallish vocals and points.

Sadly though this unblack metalness doesn't last very long, and soon gives way to progressive metal. Normally this wouldn't be bad I love the time changes of progressive metal, the wonderful guitar melodies and harmonies that most people couldn't do, the time changing of the differant drums beats and so on. Extol manages to do all of this, but many Christian metal bands seem to perform this sort of cop out.

Perhaps I'm giving Extol this score because I was expecting something alot better. It's still a very good album, and if your into Christian metal you should definately pick this album up. Just don't expect the unblack metal portions of it to last very long.

79/100

Extol was the first Christian band that I ever actively listened too. Since then I have discovered loads of other underground Christian bands. Typical Christian music never interested me; it seemed too “light” to me. I found out about Extol on Amazon.com, and I was surprised to see that there were Christian metal bands.

Musically, they resemble melodic death metal, not black metal which others have claimed Extol to be. Black metal generally isn’t this melodic. Anyways, Undeceived is a fine piece of music with a few shortcomings. It starts out pretty fast with Inferno, but then the songs stops and violins start playing. Nice touch! I’m always a sucker for well placed violins. Hearing the violins play over the distorted guitars sounds really really cool, even though its only for a brief moment. The band’s drummer, David Husvik, is quite good and knows his drum kit well. None of the drumming get boring or repetitive.

The band is well talented in the music department, however the vocalist is kind of, well, different. He definitely has a unique voice, it just sounds a bit more grating than it should. I’m not saying they should ditch the harsh vocals at all; I just think it could use some work. Looking past that though, there are plenty of good tracks here. The title track has more violins in the intro and a nice solo at the end. Meadows of Silence is a short acoustic track that is relaxing to listen to in the middle of heavier music. Ember marks the first track on the album where guitarist Ole Borud sings clean vocals. He is a damn good singer; apparently, he also sung in a group that performed children’s songs. I never would have expected to see someone like that in a band like this! Renewal happens to be my favorite on Undeceived. Its an uplifting song and always puts my in a better mood.

You really can’t go wrong with any of the songs here. It’s a strong album worth a listen to fans of melodic death metal.

Highs: Nice use of violins; Overall powerful sound; Nice mix of vocal styles

Lows: Not enough violins, unfortunately; Needs better vocals

Final Comment: Decent melo-death, but needs better death vox

Christian anything is instantly scorned amongst the metal community, of that there is no question. I really don't care, so long as the lyrics aren't over-the-top bible thumping crap.

I don't really find that here, and when it comes down to it, I could refrain from picking up a lyric sheet in the first place. The vocals are generally rough in a melodeath fashion, so as long as I don't hear "God", "Jesus", or anything similarly faithful, I'm good to go.

That being said, there's not much to complain about; all members are well represented, even the bass player. The production is clean, clear, and balance seems to be established and consistent, which is a classical concept that you don't often find used in the metal world.

With some of the dynamic contrasts, an approach that's not orthodox to any particular style and the slightly syncopated heavy rhythms it would be easy to see that this might have an almost progressive appeal. The first two tracks both have strong melodies present, but vary it with flat out riffs, and throughout the album use other sounds and textures to bolster this appeal.

The album opens off fairly interesting by combining some heavy goth metal riffs with... a violin? Indeed, and it's certainly not used in a My Dying Bride context, which most metalheads would identify with. However, it ends very awkwardly in the sense that the song was going somehwere, and just stopped suddenly. Compare it to someone going to the store, but right as they get halfway there, just turns around and goes in some random direction. Not a good thing.

In the same fashion the second track starts, very nice with a melancholy string quartet arrangement (maybe a trio), but blasting into metal with the same melody presented initially I find to be in poor taste. Some memorable guitar licks, but somewhere halfway through the song they try a slow approach. Could have been effective, but by that time (about 4.50) the song has already become long-winded. While the song was passable, there really wasn't anything they could do at that point but bring things to a close. So the slow section just seems tacked on for the sake of having more content.

Much like the second track, the third takes a similar approach, this time with an acoustic that's not all that far removed from some early 17th century lute work. This works this time, though the violent change from sonorous to abrasive would be more than most care to hear. The fourth track is not worth dissecting. Nothing memorable and clean vocals. It doesn't work.

The whole record seems to end up this way. Memorable riffs and melodies, and at least attempted dynamic contrast, but many mistakes that don't make it a consistently enjoyable throughout. I think this could have benefitted from some serious editing, as all of the songs should be over at around the 4 minute mark.

In the end it's not all that bad, it's just really inconsistent, and structurally repetitious.