Nightrage

Insidious

Written by: PP on 08/12/2011 05:52:45

"Delirium Of The Fallen" is one of the strongest openings to a melodic death metal album I've heard, certainly in the modern era when a quality melodeath album is a hard one to come by. It's a great introduction of things to come on "Insidious", the fifth album by the Swedish/Greek ensemble Nightrage, featuring full-fledged lead guitar melody that is best described as ripping or tearing in manner. The guitars are razor-sharp, yet perfectly produced, powerful and swift, pacing by the listener in high tempo while adding an enormous amount of catchy melody in the process. The vocals, too, are fantastic melodeath shrieks, located in a sublime halfway point between a growl and a scream so that they are raw, but entirely decipherable at the same time.

The remaining tracks don't disappoint either. "Wrapped In Deceitful Dreams" is a groovy rock'n'roll turned melodeath piece with tapped leads and a catchy chorus, although the catchiest one is found in "Cloaked In Wolf Skin", a track, which alongside the one mentioned in the opening paragraph, recalls "Undoing Ruin" era Darkest Hour. Now that's a solid reference if there ever was one. Indeed, much like "Undoing Ruin", "Insidious" carefully maneuvers within pure melodic death metal, avoiding the metalcore trap so many other bands fall into these days. The songs are organic, fiercely rooted in death metal, but spliced with a ton of melody and super-catchy choruses and lead riffs for good measure. Nothing fake or pretentious here, that's for sure.

But best of all, the songs on "Insidious" are exceptionally consistent through and through. You'll have to light up every lamp in your possession to find even a single track that wouldn't be up to standard set by the songs already mentioned in this review. Sure, they are not original in the slightest, borrowing key features from the classic In Flames / Dark Tranquillity albums, but that is irrelevant because Nightrage simply sound so goddamn convincing. They play melodic death metal with heart and passion, and it is clear from the songs that this is the style of music they love. That's perhaps why the solos are so good, the riffs so catchy, and the vocals so great. This is a melodeath album that tears and rips throughout. It's easily the best one I've heard in the genre this year, and I'll have to gauge deep in my memory to find another album equally impressive in recent years. To call "Insidious" even a quintessential melodeath album wouldn't be out-of-place.

8

Download: Delirium Of The Fallen, Cloaked In Wolf Skin
For the fans of: Darkest Hour, In Flames, Children Of Bodom, Enter My Silence
Listen: Myspace

Release date 26.09.2011
Lifeforce Records

Related Items | How we score?
Comments
comments powered by Disqus

Legal

© Copyright MMXXIV Rockfreaks.net.