So right after I interview one of their guitarists (Gus G.) I get to review Nightrage's album "Sweet Vengeance", and what a doozy this motherfucker is.
Now, since I'm kind and I know name dropping will get you more hyped than me just preaching, I'll give you the line up. Vocals: Tomas Lindberg (At the Gates, Lockup, Ex/The Crown, The Great Deceiver) Clean Vocals: Tom S. Englund (Evergrey) Guitar 1: Gus G. (Dream Evil, Mystic Prophecy, Firewind) Guitar 2: Marios Iliopoulos (Ex/Exhumation) Drums: Per M. Jensen (Artillery, Konkhra, Invocator, The Haunted) Bass: Brice Leclercq (Newbie, haw haw) (and even a cover-art by Dark Tranquility's guitarist Niklas Sundin) Yeah, exactly... its one of THOSE bands, you know what I'm talking about: "Super-Sweden Project Bands". Well, that's what it would seem like... but the band was formed in Greece by Marios & moved up to Sweden, wise move with the line up he grabbed. So the band is Melodic Death, parts can sound like the prodigy At the Gates wish they had, parts sound like Whoracle if it was twice as good, some parts sound like Dimension Zero if they weren't half-assed & boring, and had good, more creative guitarists. Basically what this band did was take a great Death vocalist, and stick him in a band with a couple of guys that actually CAN do melodic guitar work (and damn good at that), a bassist, a good drummer & a guy with a nice voice, and they created the best Melodic Death album of the year... Song by song dissection my arse, just do yourself the favor of buying this, I can't really believe I'm reviewing a Melodeath album that doesn't suck ass, sellout, try to be Hardcore or sound like some half assed attempt at Power Metal with a guy screaming over it. None of the song's on this album sound the same, the production fits well, if not the most perfect (what do you want outta Fredman? they do their job & they do it well). This is the real smile starter: The guitars- they don't do a half-assed cop out on Iron Maiden, and their not boring or repetitive, the solos kick ass, the In Flames guys'd be crying if they even cared about trying to make good material anymore. From the opener "The Tremor" to closer (& instrumental) "The Howl of the Wolves" this album is everything I've wanted out of a Melodeath album since the genre first came around, good show Nightrage, I hope you can keep it up. This album is getting filed right next to Mirrorworlds & The Gallery as one of my favorite Melodeath albums of all time.
So in conclusion: If you like Melodic metal mixed with Death metal, and you like it done REALLY well, you will like this album. Good enough? and those cleans by Tom Englund are a really spiffy addition to the ever-loved pissed of growling of Lindberg, nice, nice.