When album opener ‘Showdown’ kicks in, a lot of band names jump to my mind. I hear Gardenian’s feel for melody, modern Chimaira-like trash assaults and the same playful technical approach to death-metal as for example Anata has, not being true the genre at all and flinging with all kinds of metallic influences. And the best thing probably is; there’s no Swedish sounding riff in sight, which almost every time seems the case in melodic death.

Add some synthesizers and a few samples and their you have it: modern melodic death-metal that’s actually original and sounding fresh. The band does really excel in tight rhythmic interplay between guitars and drums, (think Meshuggah, ‘Destroy Erase Improve’-era but slightly more straightforward…) really delivering a pumping feel further enhanced by the barking death-growl of vocalist Niko Kalliojärvi.     
 
The album consists of ten tracks which together make up for a well balanced album. 
Short blasters like ‘Drug Of Choice’ interchange nicely with more lengthy rhythmic or melodic tracks like opener ‘Showdown’ or closing track ‘Bleeder’. The title track perfectly combines all elements, even adding some clean guitar interplay to finish things off nicely.

My only gripe with this album is track 9, an atmospheric interlude which is in fact a welcome diversion, but should have been placed half way through the album in my opinion, but it isn’t really a big thing. For that matter, if that’s the only thing I’m complaining about, I’m probably having a bad day and just being picky, so you might as well forget that.

 

In short: Amoral deliver a very good ORIGINAL SOUNDING (and I can’t express that enough...) modern technical melodic death/trash album which could possibly even appeal to a wider audience, even if it isn’t ‘trendy’ (Swedish sounding that is...) at all. And that sole fact is enough to give these Helsinki guys an honest try. The disc sounds awesome, they know how to write a catchy tune and the boys definitely show some technical skills. Try it, you won’t regret it.