In Deep Silence

How on earth a band can blatantly get away with playing such stereotypically Scandinavian cheesy melodic death metal, whilst being from the land of lederhosen, the Sound Of Music and yodelling........ on second thoughts, cheesiness probably comes naturally to these people.

Now, I've never been an overt fan of "brutal" (read: monotone) death metal bands, preferring bands that have a distinct element of either groove, technicality or a combination of the two.

Collapse 7 sound very much like a pub-rock tribute band paying homage to the likes of Children Of Bodom and In Flames at their weakest.

I could try and write a far more constructive criticism to take apart this album piece by piece, but quite honestly whoever manages to make it through the first couple of tracks alone without grimacing or slowly starting to abhor the music, is quite frankly welcome to the album and will probably give it pride of place alongside their Rhapsody or Amorphis CDs.

To be brutally honest, Collapse 7 manage to pull of somewhat of a bizarre coup. They actually manage to simultaneously sound like a power metal band playing death metal songs, but also a bad death metal band playing mediocre power metal songs.

If this band doesn't hit the big time, then quite frankly it will neither shock me nor would the world be missing out on anything intrinsically different to any one of the other legions of bands peddling this bland metal-by-numbers rubbish.

For want of a final conclusive analogy, if death metal came in soda cans..... Insision would be the roughest form of Special Brew (minus the association with tramps & alcoholics), recent Kataklysm would be a hard ale but with a slightly bittersweet tang to it, and Collapse 7 would be a stale cream soda pushed to the back of the shelf and ignored.

If you have the spare money buy something else, or even if you're so melodically inclined, check out a band by the name of Amoral, who do melody far far far better than this.