Amoral
Decrowning

January 2006
Released: 2005, Spikefarm Records
Rating: 4.0/5
Reviewer: Luxi Lahtinen

The Finnish Death Metal commando Amoral keeps on pushing a pedal and speeding up determinedly and somewhat goal-orientated on their 2nd full-length album titled DECROWNING. The band released their debut album WOUND CREATIONS through Spikefarm Records in 2004 (Spinefarm´s sub-label which concentrates more on obscure/extreme metal bands) and even if it was gaining lots of rave reviews all around the globe, it was unfortunately destined to drown to the masses for some strange reason.



On DECROWNING the band sounds like a more rehearsed and tighter unit than ever before. It seems like the whole band has peeled its skin off in the name of becoming a better and more creative song writer on the band´s next release. Their song structures just meander restlessly, but still a very sophistically controlled way from one side to another, like kind of focusing on creating sort of competion between individual instrument which one of them could bring the trickiest and most complex elements in for the song structures, and even make them to sound instantly captivating and memorable to anyone who´s curious to check them out. I was especially happy to hear the strong outputs of the band´s dynamic guitar duo Ben and Silver for the songs who both have been capable and ambitious enough to churn out really killer riffs, kind of extraordinary mind-provoking hooks and catchy harmonies out of their 6-string shredding machines, providing at least 60% out of the whole album´s kick-ass value - or more even. If you are after for some hard-boiled evidents, these two particular fellows´ intriquing and massive riff fests are strongly present in "Showdown", "Tiebreaker" and "Drug of Choice" - and if that´s not enough, then check out the rest of the songs as well as all those guitar parts are what really move and carry the whole album forward. That´s what I honestly think anyway, having always been a real riff sucker. Amoral´s growler Niko must also be one of those better vocalists fronting a Finnish Death Metal band. His voice is truly powerful, full of certain deep angst and hate - working out like a perfect blind date with all the other content on DECROWNING. It could be said that all the so-called key - and vital elements of a quality Death Metal release, have been sucked in for DECROWNING: Aggression, heaviness and catchiness.



As far as these guys´ sense of humor goes, I suggest you to tune your ears for the very beginning of a song called "Raptus". Hope you don´t feel bad about your favorite boy bands tho... ;=)



With the release of DECROWNING, it´s easy to announce and spit out a possible fact that Amoral has taken a major step closer to the top league of the worldwide Death Metal realm.