The Delores Lesion

I discovered this very obscure, unsigned band a couple years ago with the help of their promotion on certain metal forums. Their first two albums were self-released: "The Earth Gods" which was alright but the production was atrocious, and "Memorial" which is an amazing metal album, the production was better but still not polished. I knew this band had lots of potential, and someday they would get signed to a great company and get the attention they deserved. Soon enough, they landed a deal with pretty much my favorite record company and place to order CDs- The End Records! It made perfect sense, there were plenty of similar bands there, and I knew all along The End was the perfect label for them. Anyways, on to the music.

This album's production is finally top-notch. Pummeling drums, heavy guitars, switching from growling and a unique clean singing voice, keyboards in the background, all make for some quality metal.

The first song starts off with a kick in the face with sudden really intense growling vocals. Couldn't be better. "Even the Vultures Have Moved On" adds some clean singing, and is a very powerful and solid track. My favorite song is probably "Follow Through," it just really gets the adrenaline pumping every time; it's really fast paced, excellent riffs, excellent keyboard playing in the background, kind of atmospheric during the verses, it's just all the great elements of the band rolled into one song. "Ether" is a short, quiet, atmospheric instrumental, very nice to throw in between the heavy songs. "Dark Haired Girl" is a very soft balled/duet with female vocals and keyboard set to sound like violins, also a nice change. The last track is the longest and mostly heavy but then fades out with a nice piano outro.

I'm not sure if I like this better than Memorial yet, their previous effort. That album has longer, more progressive songs compared to this, and softer acoustic sections which I always like, and the album itself is longer. Even though this album is only 36 minutes long, it doesn't seem like it. Shorter time never means anything, some of my favorite CDs are a half hour or less. Just be sure to check out Memorial if you like this.

Fans of Dark Tranquillity and Soilwork will probably like this and maybe fans of Agalloch, although they aren't really all that similar to these bands. "Memorial" is slightly more similar to Opeth, with the longer, more progressive songs. All in all, this is seriously one of the best metal albums I've got this year. It is well worth anyone's time.