Crater

So, Fission...

Here we have death metal, clearly. It also has some progressive influences, as can be most easily noted in the somewhat irregular time signatures. As a general overview of the band, and of this album, I'm guessing it would be appropriate, in some way, to compare it to At The Gates, but you still need to keep in mind that this is SO much more than At The Gates, or whatever other gothenburg metal band you care to name.

The music has a nice raw feel to it, as can be expected with this kind of death metal, but it somehow also manages to feel very smooth, in a flowing fashion. Vintersorg's vocals are a little bit different than what they usually are, maybe a bit more on the "core" side in the texture as I heard a friend of mine say. Be reassured though, it is still clearly Vintersorg singing you can tell right away after he lets out his first growl.

The guitar is nicely dry and the bass make it all juicy. That is, the bass and Vintersorg's vocals. The drum work is also worth mentionning, I believe. The guitar riffs are original, nicely cut into the sometimes irregular time signatures. It doesn't sound totally "out of nowhere" like is the case with some prog bands, it simply makes you raise you ear for a second, wondering what just happenned. Some of the other "prog" stuff become obvious after a few spins of the album.

Overall, a good album to get if you like "gothenburg type" death metal, and a must have if you are, like me, a Vintersorg fan. Also, this album opens up its beauty and complexity only after a few listens, so be patient with it!

Sounding like a cross between At The Gates, Dimension Zero and *insert melodeath band here*, this album is definitely not something I would normally have expected from Vintersorg. As can be expected from the genre though, it doesn't do much to distance itself, adding elements of metalcore as the need randomly strikes him. Yeah, sure the leads are catchy, but that's kind of what melodeath as a genre has going for it. A distinct lack of solos can be noted, replaced by the breakdowns that are all the rage on MTV2, something I probably should've expected.

The vocals are normally where any Vintersorg project shines, but here they sound dull and lifeless. His rasp just kind of there, and his normal clean singing has been replaced by a more nasal tone similar to that used by Anders Friden. Occasional metalcore standards of talking and/or rapping can be found as well, with the latter sounding eerily like that done by POD. As seems to be a standard nowadays, the chorus' are sung cleanly, regardless of how out of place clean vocals may be, in a style reminiscent of As I Lay Dying. I was seriously let down here, and this was quite possibly the worst performance from Vintersorg I have ever witnessed.

However, amid the horrific vocal performance and the generic melocore on this album there are a few truly fine moments. Every few tracks there are melodies, vocal harmonies or a moment of acoustic/keyboard playing that immediately drew my attention and reminded me of the Till Fjälls/Ödemarkens Son era. As oddly out of place as these song/segments were, they had a certain passion to them I find heavily lacking in the work released by Vintersorg over the past 6 years or so. That passion, atmosphere and "feel", for lack of a better term, is what I've always liked about Otyg and earlier Vintersorg, so this is definitely an extremely high point.

Overall, this album is roughly two thirds Ozzfest/MTV garbage and one third very well done old school Vintersorg. I'm unsure exacty why he chose melodeath as his boredom/frustration outlet this time, since Havayoth was what came of his last creative slump and was actually quite good. All negativity aside, the third of this album I find good is far superior to both "The Focusing Blur" and Borknagar's "Epic", so perhaps I should just be happy with my good album portion and hope Vintersorg gets his shit together and starts releasing good albums again.