Oh shit, how wrong this melodic death metal album sounds like! This here platter features one of the worst examples of studio wizardry I've ever witnessed, period. The drums, oh those drums... Heavily triggered kick drums are bad, way too snappy, but not as bad as the snare drum, which sounds like the drummer was hitting a rotten bream on its drum head. At least the cymbals and the hi-hat sound more natural, but much too hissing. The vocals reverberate like they were recorded in a small closet. The guitars are at times okay, but heck how cool the bass guitar sounds like! It's rumbling like overheated plasma cannon still continuing firing shots. The guitars sound rather weak and wobbly here and there. It's not always so clear what's happening with them. It ends up being woolly. Generally, the production sounds way too digital and badly balanced. Therefore it is weak.

So, the drum kit sounds lightweight like the vocals, but the bass provide the heft. Dan Swanö's mastering at Unisound studio, Sweden, couldn't fix the rudimentary problems. This reissue wasn't remastered I believe, it doesn't read anything about that in digipak. What is cool about this reissue is the bonus material; this includes whole 'Beyond the Gates of Pain' mini-album. It doesn't sound too hot either, production-wise, but much clearer than the actual album.

Late Immortal Rites sounded quite similar to loads of Gothenburg melodic death metal bands that turned into futile noise-makers. As the 'Beyond the Gates of Pain' song material is closer to early Gothenburg style melodic death metal à la Dark Tranquillity and Eucharist, IR's trajectory is pretty much similar to many a Gothenburgian band: From wild excursions in death and black metal territories to modern plastic commodities. There's still some tremolo picking to be heard, though. Metalcore influence is one of disrupting elements. It made IR to add groove and so lame clear vocals, and strip more complicated songwriting from their music. Here and there, Pain (god damn, it's kind of danceable at times!!!) and 21st century In Flames influences are very strong. There still are some nice moments in some of the songs (e.g. 'Born in Our Own Funeral' and 'Killing Star Species, that rips off Hypocrisy), yes, but they aren't many enough to lift up the general feel on the album. And no, there is no Morbid Angel vibes here, even though the band's name might suggest so...

The growled vocals are rattling and effective (in vein of Kalmah vocals), but alas, IR decided to add some "hot" clean ones in! Horrible and lame clean voice sounds like it's coming through a vocoder. It doesn't sound human any more. The lyrics are still fitting with the present day, although written some 10 or more years ago.

'For Tyrant's Sake' is an abortive effort to mix older melodic death metal with groove and unavailing modern blandness and total lack of individuality. It could offer a few better moments, if the production wasn't so awful. 'Beyond the Gates of Pain' is a nice extra; it is much more completed as the album is, and worth checking out if old melodic Gothenburg stuff is what you enjoy listening to. And it raises the score by 1.

Rating: 4 (out of 10) ratings explained

Reviewed by Lane
10/01/2015 00:22