Italy's Coram Lethe are totally new acquaintance to me. The band formed on the threshold of the new millennium and the new album '...A Splendid Chaos' is their third one to date.

The instrumental 'Splendid Chaos' has some leanings towards the Swedish melodic death genre. 'Condamned to Darkness' presents the voice of Erica Puddu, who sounds like a dead ringer for Angela Gossow of Arch Enemy. The music, however, is more twisting than nowadays' Arch Enemy: Somewhat progressive hybrid of death and thrash metal is what Coram Lethe play. Imagine Dark Tranquillity touching the private parts of Symbolic-era Death with thrash metal playing as their spawning music. Plus, at times the guitars enter the world of Neurosis style gritty guitar tones. Sounds interesting? It should. But... The songs simply get on without having much adhesive power in them. The music constantly borders on interesting, but hardly any song can keep up the good flow. If there are memorable songs, they must be evil-sounding 'Mystical Pentagram' and 'Passione della Carne' with its fine atmospheric overtones. Generally, the music is just too messy, simply put.

I do not enjoy the blood-curdling vocals at all, because in my opinion they do not fit well enough with the music and also are invariable. There is growl and gremlin-like squall. The instrumentalists' performances are classy with technicality, heavy-handedness and character. Every instrument minus the drums sound fine and organic. The loud drums sound somewhat floppy, and they steal too much space. The cover artwork is eye-catchingly ugly, to tell the truth.

'...A Splendid Chaos' is halfway there, but the lack of interesting song structures and not so good vocals makes it tumble dowm. Sounds better in small doses, but it simply does not persevere through its 50 minutes.

Rating: 5+ (out of 10) ratings explained

Reviewed by Lane
05/10/2009 12:38