Devouring Star : " Through Lung and Heart'

This Finnish band is onto something at the onset of their new album which came out way back in February. They open with slow churn pulse that merges death metal and black metal in a very organic manner, until the blast beats come in like an uncontrolled spasm and take things of on the path of chaos. They ebb and flow and forth between the polarities. It's one thing to like black metal and want to play it , but I think when these guys are true to themselves that is only a shade of the deathly doom the dive into . The vocals are a low growl sometimes reaching up into a more agonized cry with a slight croak to it. There only weakness is the need to keep returning to blast beats like a girl with low self esteem in an abusive relationship. They do not need them to be heavy.

The pound you at varied tempos on " Decayed Son of Earth" some more furious than others. Despite taking on more of a Deathspell like dissonance "To Traverse the Black Flame"  blends too closely t the previous song, so it begins to sound like on long nasty blast of darkness being belched up at you. They eventually wind their way into a groove. This is soon blurred out by a barrage of blast beats. After spending the better part of my afternoon sifting through black metal albums that are being held in high regard this year, the trend seems to be people being content with just any old blast beat, and Deathspell Omega being thought of as the new Darkthrone. "The Dreams Tombs" finds the band locking onto a few good ideas that are blown out of the water by blast beats. I love black metal so I am not opposed to blast beats, I just want to hear them done in a more creative manner than what we have already heard the past decade since black metal has been on the rise.

The title track that they bring this album to a close with hangs for it's first two minutes on very deliberate and dissonance punches before lurching into an almost sludge like riff that hammering down like thunder. Here is a prime example of how heavy these guys can be when not scrambling their sonics at over 190 bpms.These guys capture so really dismal sounds and have a lot of potential, this is their debut album, so I look forward to hearing where they grow from here. Right now I'll give this album a six, but if you like dark blasty metal then you might over look the use of blast beats as there go to safety blanket.

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