Ah like a nagging child repeatedly asking are we there yet or can I please, go on can I please, metalcore resolutely remains a force within metal and like said nagging child we might want it to shut up or go away but it resolutely will not. Germany’s Out Of Decay have joined the pesky stakes with their debut album which offers nothing new in metalcore though their tunes are tempered with some proper heaviness courtesy of melodic death metal. I actually thought the intro piece was quite nice and set the scene for the album which possesses dual vocals, obviously, on “Awakening Of A New Era”. There’s plenty of two-step riffing alongside the breakdowns which the band uses well and not just for the sake of it.
The choruses on metalcore albums tend to be gang chanted one liner macho bursts for the crowd to sing along to thereby pretending to be hard. Riffing wise this is pretty close to old Gothenburg Swedeath in terms of the melodies not brutality as occasionally the band hints at Malefice like material on “Society Of Death” but generally the reference points are BFMV, AILD and possibly KSE and if you don’t know who those initials belong to then do a bit of research. The clean vocal style is fine and makes the tunes fitting for a modern so-called metal market where image and haircut style are the currency and the staples for getting onto so called rock and metal video channels.
I did think the deep vocals were over done, trying too hard to be honest and even some of the slower cleaner ones too. A lot of the songs use plenty of Maiden like guitar hooks which isn’t surprising given that said band was probably the first real metal band these acts listened to in all likeliness. This occurs with regularity but more so on “Voices”. The heaviness ups a notch on “Revenge” and works fine but isn’t really metal as we all define it, its pop pseudometal for those wanting to be different at school but are too afraid of saying they like someone such as Saxon for fear of being compared to their dad or Deicide for being a called a homicidal nutter and subsequently ostracised with permanence from their ‘scene’.
The most horrid song was “Perfect Memory” coming across as a love song and extremely cheesy it made me physically wince and nauseous. Thankfully the tune is forgotten when the heaviness of “Dissipated Life” enters though once again tempered with clean vocals as by now I have had enough of the falsity of it all.
(6/10 Martin Harris)
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