ENGEL “Threnody” (2011, Japanese edition)
Japanese track listing:
1. “Threnody” (3:56)
2. “Sense the Fire” (4:20)
3. “Until Eternity Ends” (3:50)
4. “To the End” (4:01)
5. “Down” (3:49)
6. “Heartsick” (4:33)
7. “Feed the Weak” (4:15)
8. “For Those Who Will Resist” (3:41)
9. “Every Sin (Leaves a Mark)” (3:32)
10. “Roll the Dice” (4:37)
11. “Elbow and Knives” (3:10)
12. “Perfect Isis” (6:10)
13. “Fearless” (bonus track) (3:45)
LINE-UP :
Magnus “Mangan” Klavborn –vocals
Niclas Engelin –guitars
Marcus Sunesson – guitars
Steve Drennan – bass
Jimmy Olausson –drums
Know you disperse my ash, to the last of my days, the waters of turbulantes of Göta älv, and thank the gods for their goodness…
The new album “Threnody” of the Swedish ENGEL is for me a very nice surprise, which offers an excellent melodic “made in Gothenburg” metal to the digested influences (death, metalcore and more!), which would have to be as a new anecdotal stone to the building, but thanks to its rather dark sensitivity (inherited from the “Darkwave” of the 80’s) it brings a new advanced depth to the forefront of indispensable CD libraries.
Even if each song starts with the feeling of “déjà vu”, I’m very quickly conquered, because the “Threnody” is full of small surprises that are jostling me, electrokeys of the most beautiful effects or troubling women’s voices, incontrollable solos or successful pop temptations, everything in a consistent way.
Here, we harvest the lands of IN FLAMES (but it’s not really a surprise, with Niclas Engelin on his wild guitars) but also of Mnemic for these discrete cyber/indus inserts, Sybreed’s pop and more extreme and surprising soluble dye in metal (but I had that in my head during the repeated listening-sessions), a vocal potting soil is as Chester Bennington (Linkin Park), and the excellence of Magnus Klavborn‘s vocals, throughout this album, is admirable, when his melodic and clear voice announce the following moment for the outbreak… (To The End).
This album is effectively modern and “bombastic” with Nickel Production and Tue Madsen , and here we flirt with the combination “more-than-perfect”. Listening to the album without prejudices, “Roll The Dice” might have without blush found a place in the last album of Dimmu Borgir, without forgetting the song “Perfect Isis”, beautiful and progressively dressed with Gothic ornaments of more than 6 minutes, which demonstrates once again the absolute control of the combo’s lead in its musical discourse.
Note the fulminant bonus-track “Fearless” (for the Japanese edition) that starts by negating Combichrist on its passage, and who should have won further dissemination.
“Threnody” the song that opens the Japanese edition, announces well the album’s color, it is of the high level of Heavy-Modern-Metal of high quality, which with this second excellent album, as a beacon, tags the future of a incandescent power.This album is not with songs of lamentation for the dead, but a call to life.
Just light. Transcend…
Reviewed by MEL DELACROIX
Engel – Sense the Fire (Threnody)
Metal Shock Finland (World Assault ) 