I was wholly impressed by this unknown death/thrash band and their musical skills. Basically, it's crunch tone type thrash metal guitars mixed with hoarse vocals with some screams. The outfit features Oleg Sobolevskiy on vocals, Leonid Verman on guitars/keyboards, Antuan on guitars, Demian on bass/backup vocals and Tim Ismag on drums. Again, an unknown lineup and band that needs to be more well known. Their music is diversity galore. I really dig the guitars and the vocals aren't annoying. Deep throat mostly, but like I said screams also.

Their music features riffs that are more groove oriented metal and pretty original. The keyboards are in the background with the guitars in some bits. Others it's just heavy guitars and pummeling vocals. I really do like the guitars though because they are so thrash metal oriented. The tempos are ever changing and they use effects to add a grim aura to their songs. Pretty original stuff nothing really like I've heard before. There really aren't many leads which is okay.

Again, the riffs are not very fast but really catchy, palm muted, tremolo picked bits, groove oriented outputs, alongside the death metal style vocals. The vocals don't drown out the music which is good. The music is mostly in the direction of thrash metal whereas the vocals are geared more to spewing out death metal oriented genre style. The backup screams augment the thrash metal style guitars. Really good compositions. I haven't heard their previous releases so I can't compare them.

Some songs incorporate clean tone guitars with deep throat. The time signatures are ever changing, but are still heavy and raw. A CD that you can listen to repeatedly and not get tired of. A band that they're similar sounding to are Devian (RIP) except for the vocals. There are leads on this album which are decently executed. It would've been better though if they just stuck to rhythm guitar only. The leads are quality, but the rhythm guitar gives the album it's pace and direction where it's going.

The mixing and production are solid. You could hear the guitars well, the vocals don't drown out the music, the keyboards are well heard too, the bass is a little hard to hear and the drums fit well with the guitars/vocals. A band that needs to get on a bigger scale record label because of the talent they exhibit in their efforts. Nothing is left out here no instrument is devoid missing their quality sound. Really well mixed, I was so impressed!

Bands nowadays incorporate too much technology in their recordings and they sound too perfect. Stalwart doesn't really do this on their album. They do use some effects but they spew out songs that are wholly original and creative. I would've given them a higher rating if they left out the lead guitar and stayed away from using keyboards in their songs. Otherwise, this is a gem of a release and should please the death/thrash metal fans quite well. Pick up this album!

Rating: 8½ (out of 10) ratings explained

Reviewed by Death8699
05/25/2012 20:02