Crimson Sunset

Here we have the one man band, Diadem, with the debut full length cd, which I would classify as melodic death metal. There's well blended riffage, a mid to high ranged scratchy type of growl, a bit of keyboards integrated into a few songs here and there, and I'm fairly sure of myself that there's a drum machine. That or the drum sound is just realy raw and machine like, but the gritty distorted guitar sound is damn effective, so I have no complaints about the production, especially since its an independent release. I should also mention that there is a small amount of tasteful clean vocals.

The album starts off very well, tons of superb riffs, and enjoyable metal songs. Once the cd reaches the fifth song, things slow down for a couple of minutes with a well written peaceful keyboard arrangement titled Lost Spring. After that little breather it jumps back into metal mode, all the way untill the last song, titled Escape, another rather peacful sounding song with some light guitar, and some high-hat. My one complaint comes from the song Crimson Sunset (track 9), after the guitar solo does it's thing, the drums lead the song off into it's next segment...but this drumpart is the exact same drumpart as Amon Amarth's intro to their song Death In Fire. Gah! I can't hold this against the one man band though, I mean for an 18 year old guy writing and playing everything on this cd, this is a rather insignificant thing to complain about.

There is no reason to try and compare Diadem to anyone aside from that tiny little bit of Amon Amarth stealing (or paying tribute perhaps), it is very unique stuff, so I shall just say that it's melodic death, and it's awesome. Nearly 50 minutes of wothwhile music, you should certainly check this cd out in the not too distant future. Diadem is a band to keep an eye on.