Amoral - Decrowning

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Genre	Death/Thrash Metal	Niko Kalliojärvi	Vocals
Tracks	10	Ben Varon	Guitar
Runningtime	41 Min.	Silver Ots	Guitar
Label	Spikefarm Records	Erkki Silvennoinen	Bass
Release	05 Oct. 2005	Juhana Karlsson	Drums
Country	Finland	-	Keyboards
Similar artists	---

For fuck's sake. If you are going to play "modern deathrash" then do it good. There is no genre that is so unbearable to listen to as this one if it's not done good. Only a couple of songs into this the second album by finnish death/thrash metal band Amoral, the first album being the critically accliamed Wound Creations (2004), my interest is lost as everything sounds the same, even though I have several times tried to put the album aside for a few days in order to let it rest and give it a new and fresh chance.

Technically adequate and well produced, yes, but with a total lack of charisma and personality. When comparing this to for example Doomsday Machine by Arch Enemy, which I thought was a bit boring and unpersonal, the latter feels like a killer album in comparision. The fact that Amoral incorporate some slight progressive elements in form of a smooth changes back and forth from blastbeats to more groovy parts and some more technical riffs does not save the situation.

On occasions they manage to produce a nice flow and some decent riffs, but that is nothing you can base a whole album on. Most of the times it is incredibly boring and monotone. There is every now and then also some bits of older Darkane, Soilwork and later Children Of Bodom to be spotted in the structure of the songs but here it just a handful of tired, to not say exhausted, riffs piled on top of each other with no interest factor at all and it really does not lead anywhere. In addition, melodies that manage to engage me are practically non existing here.

On a sidenote, I also think that Petri Lindroos of Norther (also Ensiferum) might have to hand over the crown and the title 'most dry and monotone vocalist of northern europe' to Niko Kalliojärvi. It is at least a very close call. This is a very boring piece of plastic and I can not really see anything good or positive with it. A coaster for your friday evening drink while listening to the new albums by Kataklysm or Krisiun, perhaps?