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October 12, 2008 |
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01. Trust Is Overrated
02. The Shallow End
03. Break The Pact
04. A Stubborn Soul
05. Shoot It In
06. Going Down Screaming
07. Hours Are Wasted
08. Sympathy Has Decreased
09. Down Right Dreadful
10. Relive Your Fall
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At a point in time when the devastating impact of that earthquake of innovation many know as the Gothenburg Sound has subsided to tremors and the greatest of its flag-bearing bands, such as AT THE GATES and IN FLAMES, have faded into legend or journeyed far from their roots, out from the settling dust comes the earth-rending dominant aggression of THE DUSKFALL. Rooted in the very sound that caused so many metal minds to focus on the Swedish Metal forefront in the mid '90s, THE DUSKFALL hearken back appreciatively to the epic days of Melodic Death Metal, while also giving well placed tips-o'-the-hat to many of the other innovators responsible for Sweden's eclectic mastery of the many faces of metal, like ARCH ENEMY, SOILWORK and HYPOCRISY, as well as to Holland's masters of Melodic Death: GOD DETHRONED.
The distinction and appeal of THE DUSKFALL lie in the particularly masterful way in which the band manages to keep one foot firmly planted in the Swedish Melodic Death grave while shoveling in mouthfuls of molten metal and thrashy grit, burying you in its precision and eulogizing your wasted remains with the efficiency of a medieval executioner. The band leans heavily upon Mikael Sandorf and Antti Lindholm's flare for guitar-driven fury, whether it's full speed intensity, the occasional sweeping melodic solo or chugging and crushing concrete rhythm breaks, keeping a constant conflagration of guitar pyrotechnics erupting from the speakers at all times. Spliced within is an exceptional rhythm section, with a spine - cracking low - end from Marco Eronen's bass bleeding bottom-heavy thickness throughout, and the mandatory high-quality drum deliveries from Oskar Karlsson that both drive the tempo and add variety through their depth.
Meshing these facets together is the no-frills intensity of screamer Kai Jaakola, whose style-standard Thomas Lindgren-esque vocals masterfully recapture an AT THE GATES feel, while an added intensity and several degrees of grit provide an extra level of effectiveness with respectful emulations of legendary voices like Angela Gossow and Peter Tägtgren.
The resulting impact is both immediate and permanent, hitting hard from the moment album opener "Trust Is Overrated" blasts in with its speedy, thrashing malice and hurtling like a runaway train to the bitter end with "Relieve Your Fall", which is one of the album's most ruthlessly crushing tunes and which is a bombastic assault so precise and rhythmically intense it could have come straight from HYPOCRISY's "Into The Abyss" or "The Final Chapter."
Everything in between is equally effective, relying unfalteringly on in-your-face vocal malice, lightning-charged riffs and the ever-effective rhythm breaks in every song; of particular note is "The Shallow End", undoubtedly the album's greatest metal moment, with amazingly crisp stop and go riffs and Kai's dynamic vocal deliveries, which manage to avoid monotony due to his ability to stretch syllables and execute pacing and emphasis effectively. Overall every tune has its own distinction, normally when it comes to that mid-song rhythm break that runs you down with insanely heavy stuttering riffs and low-ended insanity, and which is used to particularly notable effect in songs like "Break The Pact", "Shoot It In", "Down Right Dreadful" and "Hours Are Wasted".
Being the band's third release (following 2002's "Frailty" and 2003's "Source"), "Lifetime Supply Of Guilt" validates several points in one fell swoop: THE DUSKFALL know their roots, they embrace them wholeheartedly, and the music prospers because of it. The band continues to grow with every release, tuning and honing this machine into one hell of an effective vehicle for inflicting massive head traumas through bludgeoning riffs and melodic metal mastery. The reasons not to check out THE DUSKFALL can be counted on one hand…with no fingers. In other words, there is no valid reason that you should not be running out to the CD store right now (unless it's your turn to stay home and give grandma a sponge bath). Now that you know about THE DUSKFALL, you should also know that you're missing out on one of the best albums for 2005; any further attempts to avoid this dominant display of metal could result in permanent, detrimental psychological consequences, including but not limited to:
a deflated sense of self-worth, acute poseritis, cluelessness, malignant metal deprivation, and a "Lifetime Supply Of Guilt".
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