Artist: All Shall Perish
Title: This Is Where It Ends
Type: Album
Label: Nuclear Blast

From the opening salvo of "Divine Illusion" it's rather easy to tell that All Shall Perish aren’t out to win any easy listening fans. Ben Orum and Francesco Artusato's guitars have full and deep sound, combined with the low end of Mike Tiner bass, but they still manage to put plenty of intricate melodies and leads into their powerful rhythms. Actually Artusato's are extremely impressive in the way they cut through everything else and in the case of "A Pure Evil" slow right down dragging everything else to almost a complete stop and then building up again giving Adam Pierce plenty of chances to play very quick triplets on the kick drum. Hernan Hermida's vocals range from spat out hardcorish screams and shouts to extremely low long growls, depending on the speed of the lyrical delivery, but managing to maintain a sense of manic urgency on both. The juxtaposition of drum tempo and guitar rhythm on "Spineless" is amplified by the way they swap from one being slow and the other fast to fast and slow then both fast or slow, with the vocals following either or neither to great effect.

"The Past Will Haunt Us Both" is fast and choppy and I'm still trying to decide whether it's anguish or venom I hear in the vocals. The deep vocals on "Royalty Into Exile" add extra heaviness to the blistering track full of tempo and direction changes keeping you guessing as to where the song is going next. "The Death Plague" is short but extreme and brutal in its delivery, made even more so by the exquisite melancholy of the pianoforte and strings used on "In This Life Of Pain" which could've ended the album on a haunting note, were it not for the fact that guitars and drums kick into life as you think it's all over allowing it to all end on a rather high note instead.

http://www.allshallperish.com

Marco Gaminara

MTUK HOME