Engel - Raven Kings

Published November 24 2014

*=Staff's pick	Salvation* Your Shadow Haunts You Denial Fading Light* My Dark Path I Am The Answer When The Earth Burns End Of Days Sanctuary Broken Pieces Hollow Soul*

Genre	Metal	Mikael Sehlin	Vocals
Tracks	11	Niclas Engelin	Guitar
Running time	38 Min.	Marcus Sunesson	Guitar
Label	Gain/Sony Music	Steve Drennan	Bass
Release	26 November 2014	Oscar Nilsson	Drums
Country	Sweden	-	Keyboard
Producer	M. Sunesson, N. Engelin
Similar artists	---

Engel's fourth album is also lead vocalist Mikael Sehlin's first effort with the band. With guitar player and founding member Niclas Engelin's current involvement in fellow countrymen In Flames, Engel is naturally able to ride the wave and get more attention than what they probably would have gotten otherwise.

Almost all songs land in the 3-4 minute span, so accordingly there's limited time to break out in longer bridges and solos, meaning that this record turns out rather direct and effective. It's pretty much modern metal that includes somewhat angrier vocal parts in the verses, followed by a more clean and lame appearance in the choruses, which generally is a bait that radio listeners take without further questions. The music periodically indicates a view of industrial metal and is basically kind of aggressive, fast and pumping, yet built to weave melodic parts in and to make room for the vocalist to come out less violent.

The record's most negative element is that it ultimately sounds pretty similar from start to finish, even if it certainly has a number of varied songs to open up for a diverse experience. The structures of the music through different songs aren't a complete work of copy and paste, but still the music, together with its kind of boring and too faint production, ends up in some sort of fixed position, making the album seem repetitive in the end. Generally I nevertheless like the record's outcome, but I also get a little tired of it too soon, since I can't find the much needed variation that can keep me attentive all throughout the 38 minutes.

Performance	Originality	Production	Vocals	Songwriting
6	4	4	6	6

Summary
6 chalices of 10 - Tobbe