Imperious "In Splendour" CD
[Retribute]
Having never heard this Swedish band before, something about the vibe of the band name/album title and the artwork here had me thinking this might be some sort of depressing doom metal stuff... and boy, was I wrong! This is blazing brutal death metal with a pretty good dash of technical flare and a great mix of tempos. Speed does play a large role, but not in a mundane Krisiun sort of way or anything. This stuff is definitely very much in line with a lot of the classic Florida death metal of the early 90's, complete with fairly low vocal growls, but the arrangements and the occasional appearance of dissonant chords or complex runs has a more modern atmosphere to it. I also really like the fact that the songs generally run less than three minutes, because they rip on through and take care of business without dragging things out and beating you over the head with a bunch of repetitive shit. Overall their style reminds me of the first Deicide record blended with Morbid Angel's "Covenant" and some modern flare - just check out the menacingly slow pace of the often discordant "Kingdom of Deceit" or the ripping tempos and quick lead blasts in "One With Nothingness". "Impaled" is the longest track on the disc and also slows things down considerably with a lot of killer drum fills and twisted chord progressions definitely representative of the Morbid Angel influence. They do have a nice sound working for them, too. Of course the drums are a bit rigid, but the guitars sound pretty good, the vocals are forceful, and the mix works. I'd like to hear more bass guitar, and yeah, natural sounding drums would be a treat, but I can deal with this as is. Most contemporary death metal sounds far worse than this. Visually things are pretty cool. I really like the front cover a lot, although I will admit that the repetition of similar imagery throughout the booklet is tiresome, and I don't like the way that the traycard has less color. The lyrical content tends to be pretty bleak, often lashing out at god and faith, or simply expressing hopelessness. "Infinite dimensions of blackened plague, Unveil the sorrows of human misery, A dream of forgiveness ascends to a world of fools, Suffocate the soul with embraced madness..." Sweden is definitely maintaining their resurgence of true fucking death metal here. It's been a little while since I heard something along these lines come out of Sweden, but I'm all for it, and I'm glad Retribute is continuing to dig these bands out of the masses. Good work. I'd absolutely recommend this to death metal fans, no doubt about it. This is one of the better straight up brutal death metal records I've heard this year. (7/10)
Running time - 33:34, Tracks: 11
[Notable tracks: Kingdom of Deceit, One With Nothingness, Impaled, Lament]
Retribute Records - http://www.retributerecords.com

This review has been displayed 1293 times.