Embodiment

This Divine Souls' first album contains the early demos songs, re-recorded with a better production. The demos are from the middle ‘90s. The songs Embodiment and Perished are from “Perished” demo, while the other ones are from “Erase the Burden” demo.
The group sounds like early In Flames (before they begun playing in Korn style…) and with this I could have said everything…but…the group is good and this album sounds competent and quite personal.

The songs are in typical melodic death metal style, with quite fast parts and slower ones with good melodies. While some groups use keyboards, here the biggest part of the melody is done by the guitars, always inspired and not boring.
The rawest parts of the sound are quite well balanced with the melodic ones. The rhythm guitars sound is powerful and “Swedish” enough to balance the lead guitar.

Well, here we have nothing new, but who cares when it's done well…? The thing I liked the most are the vocals: they are different from the others because they’re very raw, screamed, almost black metal! The screams are perfect to sing all those lyrics full of personal struggles and sadness, typical trademark of this band.
Life and Death Collide, Razorsharp and Scars are a good example of this. The sad, nostalgic melodies mixed with the Swedish sound reach the top in those songs.

The melodies, despite being sad, are very catchy, bringing you directly in the group’s internal struggles…you become a part of them and they become a part of you. They’re very evocative and personal.
The most violent influences can be found in Embodiment song where the intensity and speed grow, but always being well filtrated through melody in the guitar sound.

This is a good melodic death metal album that every fan of this genre must at least listen to. The group is good, also technically with a good style and quite strong personality. A hard thing to find because there are millions of groups that play this genre but often not in a good way.

Make no mistake. This album is an unabashed on-its-knees worshipping of In Flames. From the guitar riffs to the melody lines to the lead breaks to the screamed vocals to the pacing to the acoustic interludes to the whispered sections, it may as well be considered a "lost" In Flames album. Or perhaps more appropriately, a cover band. This falls somewhere between Jester Race and Whoracle, perhaps, or earlier. Which means originality is right out the window...there is absolutely none to be had here. However, the musicians are not without skills, and the results are certainly enjoyable to a degree. The production is good, the mix works fine. But unless you've been under a rock and somehow haven't heard In Flames before, this will sound like, well...I'm sorry, but yes...a rip-off. With that said...

The music is highly melodic style Swedish death metal, with vocals much like Anders Fridén (though a bit more vomited-out than screamed, and thus not quite as enjoyable or listenable). Pacing varies from mid-tempo to fast. The drumming is capable but definitely not jaw-dropping (some fills seemed a bit sloppy, but the guy can mix it up ok, he's not boring so much as just in need of chop-polishing). The guitarist writes most/all the songs, and it shows...this is a guitar-driven album from start to finish. Lots of that now-common weaving of simple crunchy background key-progression rhythms (and bass mirroring that) with swirling melody lines on top through most of every song. You've heard it before. It sounds nice. But as mentioned above, you can't get the uncanny resemblance to In Flames out of your head. And you feel cheated. You feel like it's just a disappointing In Flames album, not a unique band.

And there it is. You don't need this album. Buy the first three or four In Flames albums, and this will never get played again. Guaranteed.