Fall of Serenity

Bloodred Salvation

Written by: TL on 07/06/2006 02:20:37

To be a bit controversial, I’m going to leave out the usual rant about the oversaturated metalcore-scene in todays’ review of “Bloodred Salvation” - The fourth and latest effort from Fall of Serenity. Why I’m gonna do that, is because there is no need for justification related to this album. The Germans deliver a nice melodic blend of death metal and metalcore, and, being in danger of sounding overly exited, I’m here to tell you it’s actually quite AWESOME.

The album is filled with brutal but melodic riffage and lyrics just begging to be screamed by a pit of passionate moshers. Catchy hooks are all over the place accompanied by the usual coarse metalcore-vocals. Production is way up there with “Darkest Hour – Undoing Ruin” and it is undeniably hard not to notice the resemblance between that album and Bloodred Salvation.

Being similar to a Darkest Hour record doesn’t earn you a 10 all by itself though, and the album does contain a couple of flaws if you ask me. First, there’s the ONE MINUTE(!!!) piano/synth half of the ‘intro’ (Cliché anyone?). I HAVE to rant about that. I don’t understand the point of why I should be bored for the first minute of my listening experience. The riff in the second part of the intro is good, and I think FoS should rather have made another song out of it, even if it would have been an instrumental one. If the band ever reads this then “Please quit the pseudo-artistic messin’ around, and get to rockin’ out, when you’re clearly so good at it” (said in a very positive and friendly tone of course). The beautiful (and SHORT) synth-intro of “Dead Eyes” works for me in a big way though, and along with “Out of the Clouds”, these are the songs you should notice on your first listen.

This is an album filled with admirably written and performed metalcore, and no fan of such will find himself bored when listening to this, regardless if it’s the first or the 20th listen. "Bloodred Salvation" is a record filled with good songs and better songs – And then there’s the title track. I was all worked up and enjoying the album by the time of “Dead Eyes”, but then TWO AND A HALF MINUTES of MORE PIANOSTUFF! What is this even doing on a metal record?! I do not get it! To me, this track breaks the flow of the record, and that’s about the only noteworthy thing about it. Because this makes you have to skip track 5 every time you listen to the album, and combined with the annoying intro-cliché, the grade is dragged down. Too bad, since this album is otherwise great.

Download: Out of the Clouds, Dead Eyes, Swallowed Lies
For the fans of: Darkest Hour, At The Gates
Listen: MySpace

Release date 15.05.2006
Lifeforce Records
Provided by Target ApS

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