Believe it or not, `The Reckoning’ is the fourth full length studio album from Swedish metallers Arise. They appear to have had an extremely lengthy career already, without anyone noticing (not me at least!) – make of that what you will. See if you can guess which type of metal they play from the following facts; they are from Sweden, there are no keyboard players in sight, their songs have titles like `Blindead’, `Pitch Black’ and `The Fury’, they formed in the mid-nineties… That’s right, what we have here is a dose of melodic Swedish death metal, and a good hefty dose it is too!
As you would expect from a Scandinavian band of this type, the production is immaculate; everything is clear, razor-sharp and polished so you see your face in it. The guitars have that perfect balance between crushing heaviness and intense clarity, with that cutting mid-range tone that so many Swedish bands have, and all instruments can be heard perfectly. In short, this is very much business as usual in Sweden.
So – we’ve established that Arise have that typical `Swedish sound’. Far from being a complete carbon copy of one other band however, they do mix it up quite a bit – as far as I can tell they have the pacy urgency of Dark Tranquillity, the intensity of At The Gates, with some of the huge stadium rock moments of Arch Enemy, and the melodious interjections of In Flames. However, combined with the smorgasbord of Swedish influences (sorry I couldn’t resist!) I detect some classic American thrash influences – a side order of Testament perhaps, and a small order of Slayer for dessert.
Arise seem to excel at writing huge, catchy riffs and as you would expect from a mature metal band, the song writing is very good quality. Opener `Adrenaline Rush’ does exactly what it says in the title, and kicks your face in with some seriously thrashy quick-fire riffing; my only complaint is that it seems a bit too short! I suppose it’s better to leave the listener wanting more rather than boring them death…
`No Memory Of Light’ kicks off in a similar vein, but treats us to some of those Arch Enemy style epic moments, some wicked solos and is likely to induce some serious cranial damage! Throughout the album the band beat our heads in with a collection of pounding, slicing riffs, great solos and well-written songs. My only major gripe is the rather pointless instrumental `Pitch Black’ which seems to only contain two chords and a lot of atmospheric noise. It also reminds me of mid-nineties stompy woolly-hat metal which is a turn-off for a sour-faced purist such as myself.
Other than that, there are quite a few highlights on the album; `Blindead’ is a really crushing song which sounds like the product of a jam between Testament and Arch Enemy, `The Fury’ will have Swedish melodic death metal fans frothing at the mouth with the frantic opening riff as well as the epic middle section, and `Dead Silence’ is sure to enthuse old thrash fans enough to dust off their Coroner patches.
To sum up (before I get carried away) – this is exactly what you would expect from a mature Swedish death metal band, and as such it contains no surprises. Like IKEA furniture you’ve seen it hundreds of times before but it does the job. A good album for fans of Dark Tranquillity, In Flames, Arch Enemy and At The Gates.
http://www.myspace.com/ariseonline
