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Reviews
Amoral: Reptile ride
17/09/07 || Global Domination
Question: do you like your death metal with bite, sleaziness and riff wizardry? Amoral has the almost perfect answer to this interrogation. If you haven’t heard about these Finnish fuckos, you should do your homework more often, or come out from the beaver tunnel you’ve been living at in the last few years. Here’s a band that is doing their damnedest to revitalize and reinvent a stale genre, namely melodic death metal, by injecting some well needed “cojones” and technical virtousism to the whole mess. By my estimation, they’re succeeding at it with flying colors. Whether intended or not, these guys can make us forget those weak Dark Tranquillity and In Flames half-assed clones that predate this branch of our deathly genre with their snarling, thrashy approach.
“Reptile Ride” is the third album of Amoral’s short but brilliant career. So far, so damn good, and here’s me downing a shot of Bacardi to these dudes and hoping long they may continue writing such kickass music. Amoral is maturing into a more melodic, yet still ferocious entity. “Reptile Ride” is their third album, a bit less brutal effort than the debut “Wound Creations”, but follows on the vein of sophomore “Decrowning”, emphasizing groove, speed and melody. To keep it on the subject of cold-blooded saurians, it’s like sitting atop a sleeping crocodile and poking it with a needle on the eye, and then hold on after the motherfucker starts running and swerving around, trying to rightfully eat your ass. What do they sound like? Let’s say they reside somewhere in the frontier between melodic death, technical death and thrash, all backed by expert musicianship. A sound formula, I must say!
The best assets Amoral has are the funnily named Ben Varon and Silver Ots, their two very talented guitar players. Damn, these dudes can shred! Awesome riffs and leads are spread all over these songs, and the solos are swift, kick-in-the-nuts affairs. They’ve got an overpowering, in-your-face style, and somehow just seem to be able to make the songs rock, cocks out ‘n all, down and dirty, slow or at breakneck speeds. I’d say they’ve got the much appreciated gift of TEH VIOLENT GROOVE. They go with the flow of the song, at no point feeling overly complicated, never mind all the guitar technicality and acrobatics on display. In my opinion, these guys are one of the best guitar pairings of today’s metal, without question.
The vocalist Niko has a slightly annoying but powerful roar. Reminds me a bit of JC de Koijer, although that’s just on the feel of having their throats ripped by all that roaring, ‘cause JC has a lower, more guttural register. The man is loud and abrasive, and belts his lines fast and convincingly, I dig it. Fucken memorable line how he screams “...don’t be afraid to remembered for your sins!...” on the chorus of “D-Drop Bop”. The man has aggression on the loads! The bass is pretty decent and satisfyingly discernible. The interplay with the drummer and the guitars is great stuff, adds a lot of rhythm and punch to the mix. The drums are a bit drowned by the overwhelming guitars, but you can’t help but notice the hard-hitting dynamism and movement. Everyone in Amoral is pretty good at what they do, certainly, and it shows.
Songs like “Leave Your Dead Behind”, “Mute”, “Snake Skin Ride”, “D-Drop Bop” and “Pusher” are my faves from this record, and show Amoral at their unrestrained best. Every song here is a crafty slab of melodic death metal done the way it should be. Many bands that lamely attempt to achieve what these guys so effortlessly do, should take a few pages of Amoral’s book. I can’t find any flaw on “Reptile Ride”, the songwriting is excellent, the musicianship pure quality. Amoral deserves every accolade coming their way, keep up the good work, surely an ascendancy to global domination in the death metal realm won’t be far away!
8.5 molested crocodiles out of 10.
- Information
- Released: 2007
- Label: Spikefarm Records
- Website: www.amoralweb.com
- Band
- Niko Kalliojarvi: vocals
- Silver Ots (Otso Silakka): guitars
- Ben Varon: guitars
- Juhanna Karlsson: drums
- Erkki Silvennoinen: bass
- Tracklist
- 01. Leave Your Dead Behind
- 02. Nervasion
- 03. Hang Me High
- 04. Mute
- 05. Few and Far Between
- 06. Snake Skin Ride
- 07. D-Drop Bop
- 08. Apocalyptic Sci-Fi Fun
- 09. Pusher