Find the coverage and some great photos of this year's Devilstone Open Air written by our Lithuanian contributor Inga here>> www
Death metal is such a limitless genre. You can do whatever you'd like. It can be over the top technical or slow. Brutal or insane and it's all so good. When we made "Visions of Death" it just came out with a natural old school-ish vibe and that's great, but our newer material has a much more modern technical vibe. I love how death metal has evolved.
For me, death metal should be heavy as fuck, brutal (which doesn't necessarily mean "fast"), atmospheric and evil. If the "evil" thing is not there, you can't label yourself death metal, that's a fact. I'm so fucking close minded when it comes to metal music... I listen to the SAME hard rock, heavy, thrash, doom, death and black metal that I used to listen to 15 years ago.
From Slovenia comes To Hate, a melodic death metal act that continues the Gothenburg tradition of At the Gates' seminal "Slaughter Of the Soul". Unlike that legendary album To Hate miss the bite, immediacy and brutal urgency to make "Different Faces" something truly remarkable and outstanding. With "Slaughter Of the Soul" At the Gates distilled their complex riff-heavy sound into aggressively compact, violently melodic and insanely catchy tracks that retained their essence as semi-technical act in the process. The album starts off with two instrumental pieces before finally kicking into high gear. While the instrumentation is adequate the impotent vocal work is the weak link of this act. To Hate aren't the same class of masterful songwriters as their well-known inspirations. While this act is good enough taken on its own merits and qualities put into perspective of the history of this genre, they don't quite cut it yet. The production by Soundesign Studio and 5th Season Studio is more than reasonable as there are no major defects. Overall "Different Faces" is a decent take on the ever-popular melodic Gothenburg death metal sound without ever truly doing something remarkable. To Hate are a good addition to the evergrowing Slovenian scene, but they still have to remain on their stomping grounds at home before they are ready to go international with their band. http://www.myspace.com/tohateband comment itWouter 6
