Shock horror, here we have a band who have plundered J.R.R. Tolkein’s much ravished chest for their name and they do not play black metal! If you are looking for that go track down an obscure demo by German pagan BM band Nan Dungortheb. Nope this lot are from France and play a style described as highly technical, thrash-influenced, death metal. It’s not a style I actually get a chance to tackle very often but there has been so much death flying in with the coming of winter it seemingly fell onto my lap to do the honours. I have to admit that I am really picky with what I like so the band have got an extra job to do with their third length to engage me. What I least dislike is barren brutality with no diversity about it and death metal that simply bludgeons the listener to pieces with the main aim to be as extreme as possible with one song finishing and the next doing more of the same. Luckily it was quickly evident that this is no one trick pony.
It’s taken six years since last disc ‘Waiting For Silence’ dropped and after a quick intro, ‘Inside’ batters in with a nice think chunky sound about it. Notice is immediately drawn to vocalist Grégory Valentin whose style is best described as rough and course. Over the album he does not add much to this and goes for the one real delivery pitch but luckily enough musically it chops and changes all over the place. There’s a splash of Opeth within the first number and quite a bit of dextrous and progressive soloing with lead and rhythm guitars working fluidly together. Drumming drives the pace and bass is well defined and there is a certain amount of holding back here, its delivered at a mid-pace not over extreme and not too convoluted giving the best of both worlds really and making it both complex but also fairly accessible.
The band definitely play within a style that harks back to the likes of Death and Coroner and they are a choppy burgeoning and heaving mass at times with lots of groove about them. Songs are all well pitched and never really outstay there welcome although over the 46 minute playing time the vocals do tend to wear me down a bit and I am left looking for a bit more diversification from them as they are very meat and potatoes compared to the musicianship, an odd higher rasp is placed into things at times but I am left wishing they would push themselves a bit more as the skilful solos flail away and add melodic nuances that make me want to join in and play along (if only I could). If it wasn’t so technical and diverse musically at times this could verge on hardcore / metalcore territory but again I think this is more down to the vocals than anything else. I have to admit this is an album I would really have appreciated an instrumental track being included but unfortunately there are none and I find myself trying to concentrate on this side of things but the vocals are pitched in a way that this is really difficult.
I said that Dungortheb were going to have a bit of a hard time here and indeed they have but it’s not due to the music as I would normally expect. Still they are incredibly good at what they do and if the vocals are to your taste and this is a style you like you are going to no doubt find this really hits the spot.
(7/10 Pete Woods)
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