Requiem Laus - a Portuguese death metal combo - doesn't care much for slowly guiding us into their world of plague, and starts off in medias res, so it seems. Juggling with both the aggressive and the melodic leaves the band some room for creativity, as they try to pick the best of both sides.
Mind you, I said aggresive, and not brutal: the vocals are solid grunts, and the guitars tend to employ speedy picking and (dissonant) harmony as tactics to gain a momentum of power. While the production isn't monumentally heavy, Requiem Laus' strength draws largely upon the foregrounded drums. They sound fairly sterile, but the steady pouncing is almost sure to have its effect. The sporadical acoustic or synth-based interlude are a nice diversion, and all in all "The Eternal Plague" has little annoying elements, and plenty of catchy stuff going on. Like many debut albums, however, this one too knows its highs and lows: epic tunes like 'Perception' contrast with tedious black metal-inspired riffs like on 'Gallery Of Lies'. Let's look at it from the positive side, and call it room for improvement, which will hopefully get dealt with by Requiem Laus' sophomore album. Generally, the band has put forth a quite decent effort, really, with a few common flaws that we'll just have to accept for now. It's up to you to check it out.
http://www.666producion.com
Comments
There are no comments yet
AUTHOR: Goran
Goran has been an active reviewer for years (since the old Fishcomcollective, to the brand new Corazine - and also for Face Your Underground). He enjoys - besides metal - the creative side of life, be it through music, sports, programming or 3D. You can find him at www.myspace.com/fdemets.