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Bacteria13
Hatross Overlord
Joined: 30 Jan 2003
Posts: 2465
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 Posted: Mon Sep 27, 2004 11:09 pm Post subject: GRAVE – FIENDISH REGRESSION |
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GRAVE – FIENDISH REGRESSION (CENTURY MEDIA)
Sweden’s Grave is one of the originators of the Scandinavian Death Metal sound, they, alongside the equally respected Unleashed and Entombed spearheaded the Swedish Death Metal assault in the late 80’s. This album, their first since 2002’s ‘Back From the Grave’ features new drummer Pelle Ekegren, who has brought an old school vibe to the recording process. The songs on offer here are far more varied than BFTG, main man/vocalist/guitarist Ola Lindgren stating that he was motivated to write faster tunes now that they had a drummer who could play them!
‘Fiendish Regression’ is a competent album of Swedish Death, though it will have to work hard to please fans of both the band and the genre. For if there's a criticism to be aired, then it's that Ola listens to far too much Slayer. Case in point: the drum break in the middle of ‘Reborn’ sounds exactly like (one of) the drum breaks in Slayer’s ‘Live Undead’, and you would swear that you were listening to ‘Reborn’ from ‘Reign in Blood’ once the drum intro to ‘Bloodfeast’ kicks in. Not to mention the lead intro to opener ‘Last Journey’ sounding a hell of a lot like the opening notes to the song ‘South of Heaven’.
In fact, the whole album has a SOH vibe to it, from mid-paced sludgers –‘Awakening’, to heads-down-go-for-it thrashers – ‘Out of the light’, all the while maintaining a melodic vein pulsating throughout. It’s not a bad thing, and nor is FR by any means a bad album, but for a band of Grave’s caliber I was expecting something more original than this gratuitous Slayer homage.
Bacteria13 |
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