The Prodigal Empire

Vale Of Pnath's debut album on Willowtip Records certainly fits in among other great technical death metal bands on the label, but also does just enough to distinguish itself as not to fall into the growing heap of generic techdeath bands that have risen up in the past few years. Vale Of Pnath have always come from a melodeath sensibility when writing their music, which can easily be heard on any song of their initial EP. This album is no different, featuring many lengthy sections of melodic and even harmonized guitar leads, natural breakdowns and relatively calm sections of pure musicality, and a well honed ability to run from one great riff into another which I have rarely heard since the days of early Arsis in this niche of death metal.

I wouldn't say this album is on the same level as A Celebration Of Guilt, but it's definitely cut from the same mold. Tons of great melodeath interspersed among riffs with a very brutal and progressive attitude, more akin to later Arsis as they incorporated the sound of faster, more technical bands like Necrophagist and Psycroptic. There are other moments on The Prodigal Empire which sound like Obscura, with a grim and spacey vibe, and some almost Djent sections of groove are thrown in too. This album is cornucopia of different melodeath, techdeath and even thrash styles which mesh together into something very memorable and distinct. It's hard to explain any other way.

If you enjoy brutal/technical death metal, you could do a lot worse picking this one up, but not much better. This one is probably going to fall into many of the top 10 of the lists in the genre for 2011. At least I feel like it should. It's a fresh sound for a Willowtip band, without being alienated from their usual style of acts. I'm going to have many of the hooks in these songs stuck in my head for months. I'm worried these guys won't be able to follow up with an album anywhere near as good as this one though. Vale Of Pnath need to go back and look for that prodigal magic they had when they recorded this album when the time comes to record again. There is a ton of potential here.