Nightrage
“Sweet Vengeance”
(Century Media)
Jesus H. Christ! Mighty fine Swedish death thrash, and how could it not be with the likes of Per M. Jensen from The Haunted on drums, Lindberg who did throat for At The Gates and another little band known as The Crown on vocals, and guitarist from Dream Evil, Gus. Lindberg does most of the vocals but shares the duties with a fellow who comes in to do “melodic vocals,” which is kind of true, but the word melodic might be a tad abused in this sense.
The music is sharp and ferocious, marked by Jensen’s impeccable drumming and the guitar players’ skills at melody and non-wanky solo performances. I might be getting too use to death metal, but I think this falls on the more accessible side of the death metal array insofar as all you regular metal heads are concerned. It has some clean vox here and there, loads of guitar leads and even some Maideny/latter era Priesty-esque riffs.
The main problem with the band is that they fail to really connect with me. This is often the case of the clean, technically brilliant Swede metal bands. They leave me a little cold (on album – live they’ll rip off your tits), but they live in a country where it’s a little cold, a little mountainous and I feel the tone of the music reflects that. There’s an emotional distance in the music that leaves me uncomfortable, and to be honest this kind of music is not best listened to while sitting in a decrepit computer chair writing about it.
