Faithful Darkness - In Shadows Lies Utiopa

\r\nSwedish Faithful Darkness with a former member of Soilwork in their ranks plays what else other than Melodic Swedish Death or Gothenburg Metal. The good news is that you can hear lots of good Soilwork, Dark Tranquility moments and the bad that there also some bad Soilwork and In Flames moments. This album is nothing more than aggression-meets-melody stuff that the Gothenburg scene is so renowned for. Relentless drumming, fast riffage, and sharp piercing vocals accompanied with the use of keyboards, some boring executed whiney interludes and finally some clean vocals to create a further variation to the songs. At times, this is full headbanging material. The guitar riffs are the fast Gothenburg style riffs while the keyboards accompanying the guitars are even taking the lead role at times coming in with full force whether delivering a nice melody or totally breaking down the whole output. For example the keyboard melody in the opening track "Stay Awake" is awesome although it is somewhat repeated in the track "Believer" as well the choruses in both those songs sound scandalous similar! The vocals stay harsh for the most part and the drumming, well, in my opinion it is the only flawless, breathtaking part in this effort. Martin Langen really does an amazing work with his pair of drumsticks. Jimmy "Judas" Persson, who played drums in the first Soilwork album, "Steelbath Suicide" and after quitting the band in 1999 decided that he always wanted to play guitar instead of drums and Johan Aldgård also do a great job with some really beautiful riffs to be found here and some decent solos. The tracks that really crushed my brain were tracks No 4 "Fast I Fall" and No 5 "Human Torch". Amazingly aggressive but with great melodic guitars, a crushing energy, beautiful harsh vocals and a very catchy chorus. As far as the clean vocals are concerned I can’t say I fell in love with them and the goods thing is that they are only a few of them! \r\n

\r\n

\r\nGenerally, this is not a bad album, just a listenable Gothenburg album, nothing original though and with songs that fall very often down the pit of repetitiveness but that doesn’t fall prey to its homosexual appetites! Give it a try before you decide to buy it although if you are a devotee fan of In Flames this album outdoes their latest efforts by far! \r\n

\r\n

\r\nVaso Prassa \r\n

\r\n