You know the stuff when a death metal band gets older, they suddenly want to try some mellower things in their music, and they slow down and whatever. They become old. Finland's torturer Scent Of Flesh reached the point of their 3rd full length album last year. Instead of trying out some mellow things, SoF did it the more brutal way!

It's blast right from the start, as 'Living but Stillborn' bursts from speakers. Relentless tornado of tempo changes, screeching guitars and demonic vocals welcome listener to another riff-laden and beat-stacked beast. Once again, the band packed their many influences into one, and came out with an interesting album. There's blasting breakneck speeding, as well as mid-paced pounding heard. This can't be said to sound solely like North American or European death metal, but is a mixture of both. US bands like Deicide and Malevolent Creation come to my mind while spinning this, and I think there are quite a lot of Finnish death metal influences, deliberate or not. As well as Swedish ones. Anyway, 'Deform in Torture' is good background blasting, but it offers so much more for those who are willing to dive into it, because the band use so many different styles and means. It's not a mess, but well-proceeding stuff and I believe it offers more to be found than many a death metal albums released nowadays. And surely there's pretty straightforward songs, too.

Even though the band went through some line-up changes, they've kept it together well. Vocals are now handled by the forming guitarist Matti Viisainen, who has been heard in backing vocals on earlier releases. His growl is deep, reminding me of Adramelech's vocalist, spiced up and overlapped with some more "higher" growls, creating that familiar "demon voices" effect. I bet Matti is responsible for a big part of the music with forming drummer Antti Suikkanen. This is simply SoF, just now it's tightened and more into-the-point.

The Miitri Aaltonen production is truly meaty. It's heavy as heck and also very live-sounding. If the low end is big (brutal bass here), then the guitar wall is huge! What a ripping experience. The only thing negative is, that at times the lead guitar work is not so well audible (sometimes accompanied by suitable synthesizer work). Mr. Aaltonen have produced every SoF album to date, and he's done it better every time. Probably thanks to his work with diverse kind of bands. The cover artwork is wicked. Matti Viisainen's paintings are perfect for this kind of music, indeed. Lyrics are good, and killing in the name of religions is the main topic, but there's other suitable stuff.

The third attack from Scent Of Flesh is as incisive as expected. The band's death metal isn't anything like too unique, but believe me, this tramples over many newer releases by legendary acts of the genre.

Rating: 7+ (out of 10) ratings explained

Reviewed by Lane
08/08/2008 16:16