Elenium "For Giving - For Getting" CD
[Rage of Achilles]
Here's some melodic death metal from Finland with a hefty keyboard presence that lends a progressive sort of edge to the music. It's somewhat like Children of Bodom, but more towards death metal. The keyboards are kept in check better here than they are by Children of Bodom, but these dudes also let fly with some blazing 80's metal lead runs and harmonies on occasion, so they've got that edge combined with thick rhythms and growling vocals. They never shed melody, though. And really, it's largely the vocal style that makes this lean towards the melodic death metal tag, musically it tends to be moderately paced (with a few faster areas), but the guitar tone has a good texture to it, and that combined with some of the riffing definitely has that Scandinavian death metal ring to it. It's not generic, though. It doesn't sound like In Flames or any of that stuff. They introduce some nice singing vocals in tracks like "Impostor", but I'm not that big on the way they contrast the slower melodic passages with the groovy rhythms. They also do little experiments here and there that don't really serve much of a purpose. The Indian sounding instrumentation that introduces "Nameless - Faceless", for instance, exists for mere seconds before vanishing in favor of progressive keyboard solos and simplistic groove-laden power chords that aren't all that interesting. On the other hand, a song like "Moments" is fucking stellar right off the bat, with its Opeth-esque clean breaks balanced with thick, dissonant chords and singing vocals that are a bit more emotional and emphatic than elsewhere eon the CD. Very nice... aside from the silly orchestral keyboard nonsense that closes out the latter chunk of the composition. And holy shit, check out the shredding solos all over "To Aim and Miss"! That's where they ought to be focusing their energy! The recording's not bad at all. It's nice and crisp, with a fairly strong mix. I think the vocals are slightly out front, and I have a bit of an issue with the keyboard volume, but the actual tones are all fine. I'd like to hear more bass, the drums could be warmer, etc. But most of all I think I would tone down the keyboards sometimes, because when they're not playing a leading role they often tend to mirror the guitar parts, in which case they're just sort of cluttering up the mix and taking away from the core instruments. I think the layout is a little off, I don't know... in some ways I like how the colors and textures are layered, but the fonts used aren't a good match for that at all, the colors are too bright, and the cover image has a little bit of a silly sort of look to it. It's something about the way the face is deformed that just looks kind of goofy. The back cover and some of the other panels actually look far stronger than the chosen cover. The lyrics are much bleaker than most of the visuals would suggest: "Look at your world now, Look at the mass now, It's coming apart, But they're still praying, Look at your world now..." Not bad. I think this band could be fucking great with a bit more work. They just make some bad decisions here and there. Were they to shed the groovy junk and work more on introducing more balanced tempo shifts they could be awesome. At their best they almost rival moments of Dan Swanö's "Moontower" album, but at their worst things can get pretty ugly. But they're heading in the right direction, with more strengths than weaknesses, so the future could be a promising one... (6/10)
Running time - 40:57, Tracks: 9
[Notable tracks: Moments, To Aim and Miss]
Rage of Achilles Records - http://www.rageofachilles.com

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