Forgotten Tomb : "We Owe You Nothing"

This band from Italy has changed greatly over the years. The went from being an almost depressive black metal band to a doomy sludge band and now to thrashy grooved death metal. This is their 9th album so something would be wrong if it was not as dialed in production wise as it is. In fact the sharper distortion of the crisp production leads you to believer these riffs  owe as much to Pantera in places as the do Celtic Frost. There is a groove that is hard to deny or to not bang our head to. There is almost more of an Obituary like feeling to the raw gargled aggression of "Second Chances". The difference being the darker dissonance that comes from once being a black metal band that these guys have yet to shake.It feels more like death metal than black metal when they speed up in a few sections here and there.

"Sabotuer" doesn't demand my attention as fervently as the first two songs had. The guitar sounds more up front with a current of double bass babbling like a brook beneath it. There is a more polished thrash bass sound to the rumble heading into "Abandon Everything". The vocals hold more punk in their snarl than blackness. The guitar tone is pretty interesting. The solo like single note run is a well placed bridge. As far as being a composition goes this song has more to sink your ears into than the previous song. The mid paced "Longing For Decay" has the most melodic elements so far. The riffs are really interesting and the dynamics remind me of their earlier work.

The last song is more of a instrumental piece that feels like an outro than a song in the way they have presented songs to us up to this point in the album. So while it's while played , but otherwise nothing special I am going to ignore it for the purpose of this review. As a whole it feels like the songwriting on this album is more concise and more sticks to my ears so I am going to give this album a 9, who knows if I listen to it more, but for fans of the band this is another one in the win column for those of you keeping score at home.