Blood Red Throne - Souls of Damnation (Earache/Riot)

This is a solid death metal release. While Blood Red Throne's last album was very much darker, more evil, speedier and less standardised, there is still a lot of good stuff going on in Souls of Damnation.

 

If you came to Blood Red Throne with Souls of Damnation you wouldn't guess that they are a Norwegian band. The reason is that this release, while extremely good, sounds very American. It's highly produced - almost over-produced - and clean to the point of being sharp.

 

Nonetheless, this release is a good one because of the musicianship and energy that drives it. It features speed and complexity, tight blasting, and smooth tempo changes, underpinned by skillful control of each element. I've said it before, and I'm going to keep saying it: that playing this style with any kind of speed, especially with a complexity borne of a slightly more interesting song structure - and a band's penchant for variety - requires a situation in which the members work well together and are each accomplished enough to cope with the demands of the style.

 

While the overall sound of Blood Red Throne's previous release, Come Death is darker than this one, I'd go so far as to suggest that this release has been more carefully constructed. For example, on Your Cold Flesh you are confronted with a track that features some good riffs and some good rhythmic hooks; but you also find yourself interacting with a track that has another, deeper, level. If you're not listening to it, you miss the subtlety of an additional vocal that makes a cameo appearance deep in the mix, or an effect that changes the style of the guitar just enough to make you sit up and take notice, but which is not enough to be obvious.

 

A straight death metal album does run the risk of becoming tiresome as it goes on. Despite the thought that's gone into this album, Souls of Damnation is also guilty of overdoing the same thing on the intros, or of thrashing a style of riff too often. But at less than forty minutes, over nine tracks, and with a forceful striding-forward sense, Blood Red Throne manage to hit this common pitfall and then pull themselves out of it quickly each time.

 

The element of this album that most appealed to me was its sense of movement. These guys have managed to create this movement, and control its speed - and therefore the listener's perception of tension - cleverly. At just under three minutes into track seven, Prove Yourself Dead, you can hear this demonstrated.

 

Blood Red Throne's Souls of Damnation is released on 1 June 2009 on Earache/Riot.