Madder Mortem : "Red in Tooth and Claw"

This Norwegian  hard rock band is slathered in 90's Alternative. I can hear plenty of Guano Apes and Skunk Anansie in the way the vocal melodies weave around the guitar riffs. The more Nightwish power ballad comes a little too soon in the album and kills the momentum of the first song. They go a more middle of the road route with "Fallow Season", which is a slight disappointment after the impression they made on the opening track. This fits more with the modern rock rock formula that has evolved a little since the days of nu-metal. While it's not as heavy I think "Pitfalls" is well written and comes across like a cross between Joni Mitchell and the Gathering.

In the broadest sense of the term, you could try to argue "All the Giants are Dead", but it certainly doesn't fit what we consider doom here. This song does think out of the box and has some jazz like qualities to the drumming. I can also draw comparisons to Sleepy Time Gorilla Museum on this song if we are talking about some of the stuff Carla sang on. There is a darker almost Siouxsie like turn on "Returning to the End of the World". Though this does ramp up into the more typical rock sound. "Parasites" tries to use blast beats to convince you that they are indeed a metal band. I can't imagine anyone who owns a Darkthrone album would say "Oh, yeah that is totally black metal" .

There is a more elegant cadence to "the Whole Where you Heart Belongs". The last two songs both stick closer to the standard rock format with the last song 'Underdogs" being the better of the two.I'll give this album a 7.5, there are some songs I really liked, but it's inconsistent and they need to shake themselves free of their fetish for radio rock. The window for them belonging on rock radio passed over a decade ago alongside Lacuna Coil.