Blasphemist – Shadowtorned World

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In recent years we’ve seen lots of young, vanilla-flavoured melodic death metal bands imitating the genre’s leading figures such as In Flames and infusing the sound with more mainstream metalcore influences. This has often resulted in some very polished but very soulless sounding records. Austria’s Blasphemist also take from the same influences, yet despite a fairly rough sounding production, seem to have gotten this sound down well. The production is rather rough and the mix a bit messy in places, but all of this leads to a fairly warm and organic sound – it isn’t perfect, but it has that kind of oddly appealing grittiness to it that isn’t all that common in melodeath. This wouldn’t work without good material though, which thankfully Blasphemist really do bring to the table. There’s little in the way of clean vocals, with a mix of deep and screechy harsh vocals (often mixed into each other for an unusual effect) and the occasional hardcore gang chorus in the mix as well, most notably in Painters And Poets‘ chorus. Otherwise it is the usual traits one associates with modern melodeath, though some solid bass grooves (particularly Pervading and the aforementioned Painters And Poets) that make the album stand out just a bit more from the pack. Given that the band themselves are all quite young, this is a rather promising start.

Written by James Donovan
More: 2011, Albums, Death Metal, Quick.Play Reviews, Blasphemist