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.
Opening with a cinematic intro that start off with a piano and builds into a climax that wouldn't feel out of place on a Symphony X record "In Blood and Heart" is however a ballsy death/thrash record that integrates a couple of groove metal elements. Frontman Stefan van Vugt has a mean shouted grunt that sounds similar to Prejudice vocalist Erik Lemmens. The guitar work doesn't limited itself to death/thrash exclusively as it regularly wanders into Swedish melodic death – and traditional metal territory. The biggest problem for "In Blood and Heart" is the lack of a signature track. Each and every track of this record is good on its own merits, but as a whole this record misses a stand out track that truly would put Persistense on the map. Despite that all elements are present from catchy breaks, pulverizing riffs to recognizable melodies and furious vocals; the spark to elevate this band to a higher level is sadly still absent. Recorded, mixed and mastered at Excess Studio by Hans Pieters in Rotterdam, Netherlands. The artwork by Ronald Visser complements the package nicely. Persistense is definitely a band with a bright future ahead of itself, yet they aren't quite completely there yet. Promising debut.http://www.deitydownrecords.comcomment itWouter 6
