Intercontinental collaborations are nothing new these days. With the advances in recording software and hosting sites, bands can individually compose their works and then send them to each other, continually working back and forth before mastering in studios and the final mix. It’s only expected that groups like this form these days, but they still have plenty to live up to in the death metal genre. Cynic, Lock-Up, Brujeria… These are just some of the bands in the death metal genre who have members across the globe, and now Akani put themselves forwards. Based in Brooklyn and Gothenburg, the four piece have two locations which are known for their own ‘sounds’ – the melodic and cutting death metal nature of the Swedes and the heavy, pounding groove of the Americans surely makes for a fearsome and intriguing sound on paper, but hearing it come to life is a total different question. With their recent EP (Santa Muerte) being sold out, it is clear that this group with members who have been in/are currently in At The Gates, Soilwork, Dead Reprise, Entombed and Merauder are quite possibly worthy of the anticipation building around this full length… But will the toils under the darkest flames of one’s self be enough to bring a spark to those after something fresh?
Well, how does it sound? First thing of note is the way the rhythm and feel is heavy as hell, courtesy of the famous Brooklyn groove we all know, made famous by the likes of Prong and Biohazard. The thick wall of noise from the instrumental section of the band, along with the precise time keeping aspect helps keep everything on track so the more melodic and thrash like elements, similar to those of The Haunted can come through. Whilst it may not be overly melodic in the sense you would expect from the Scandinavian influences, it does have some of the characteristics of that particular style of metal – high tempo, slight melodic shifting with the riffs and a real piercing edge to the guitar based assault. So what does Biohazard playing some riffs like At The Gates actually sound like overall?
Opening track “Ghetto” is a pretty solid indicator for how this album plays out. Fast, powerful and scathing, sparing no prisoners in its approach, the riffs bounce between evil and quick before massively crushing groove laden breakdowns. The harsh vocal growls really hammer home the lyrics and it’s a real statement of intent for how the rest of the release sounds. Shifting from fast pace pseudo-thrash to powerful almost hardcore like breakdown sections, it just smashes forwards with no fucks given. Some tracks come across as piercing groove metal, “Save God” being an example with its early Soulfly styled musical barrage and “Temple Of Lies” keeps up this Max Cavalera styled delivery but adds some backing ambience in a similar manner to that of Fear Factory. “Warrior Of Truth” shakes things up a little, coming across as more Stonesour like in places with the musical delivery with the brighter sounding groove based assault.
Whilst rhythmically precise and packing some serious vocal and tonal punch, like most strange hybrids of groove, hardcore and thrashy-death metal, it does get a bit samey in places and at times its difficult to differentiate between the fourteen tracks of anger filled metal, but that doesn’t seem to detract from the overall purpose of this music – to hit hard and heavy. The last four tracks of the album I was sent contain material from the ‘Santa Muerte’ EP, and despite the different production used, the overall approach is the same musically so these offer no diversity, leaving a total of eighteen very familiar sounding tracks.
Akani have managed to come up with some seriously angry and heavy metal on this release and no doubt they will continue to pull out some seriously heavy, anger-filled metal in the future, but when you look at this release as a whole, the darkest infernal in question must be familiarity and repetition with little variance to distinguish the passage of time. It’s good, it has groove and some serious bite where it counts… But it just lacks that select few tracks to really bring it to life.
(6/10 Fraggle)
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