Fleshcrawl - Made of Flesh
Review: Opening with a New Wave of Swedish Death Metal track played with the chunky, abrupt riffing of an old school death metal band, Made of Flesh fakes you out until the second track, at which point Fleshcrawl maintain their old Swedish style with a few jaunty rock and NWOSDM (basically, melodic heavy metal played rhythmically like death metal) touches. Since their early days, they have opened up to more interesting lead fills, simplified but more intensely spacious dynamics, and a greater harmonic range of the notes that comprise riffs.
The buzzsaw sonic spatter of intense distortion is still there, as are the serial rhythm changes (tempo remains, percussion patterns change) and the single-noted tremolo picked rhythm playing, but it has softened into the listenable at the same time like a sharpened knife its simplified fabric has given it a greater chance of impact. Entirely in line with the style achieved on As Blood Rains From the Sky...We Walk the Path of Endless Fire, this album lessens its impact as it gets closer to the comfort zone of its audience and away from its own psychological and musical frontiers.