I had not heard of Melodic Death Metal. I am not a massive Metal fan but there are some bloody good bands out there - Pryapisme, Opeth, Gojira, Meshuggah, y'know that sort of thing. So when we were asked to review The Jester Race by In Flames I thought we could be in for another treat here.
If you want to know what can be good about Metal, watch this - Ron Jarzombek - 'Cretaceous Chasm' in 12-Tone Fragments. It's a pretty good primer on how experimental Metal can be.
So a band which were at the forefront of creating Melodic Death Metal should be good right? I think what we proved is how subjective music reviewing can be. Personally my ear just wasn't tuned into it. There are some metal heads out there who will listen to that and immediately get what the band was about. Personally if it hadn't been for Wikipedia I would have said Metal with some semi-normal, semi-boring guitar solos. Kev used the word homogenized a lot, because Metal can be that, and a Metal album can be that x 10 to the power of brain freeze.
The interest for me comes from the Nordic link. Death Metal seems such a natural fit for the Morbid Existentialists of Sweden and there is something very satisfying about this. What it has done has made me realise that we need to organise a Metal Special.
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