What an absolute masterpiece of an album. It is brutal beautiful-ness that is able to successfully pull us through the heavy while also towing the line of melodeath.
I don’t think I need to say much more than that, but I will.
I ran across this album by mistake, but what a very happy mistake it was. Reminiscent of early Dark Tranquility, this album offers so many dimensions to the music that if you enjoy European metal of most any kind, I can’t see how you won’t enjoy this. Godsend digs deep into the depths of what has become known as the “Swedish sound” but puts a unique new twist on it, while being melodic as all hell, it also mixes in clear influences from death and black metal, and of course that Finnish sound that reminds me of early Children of Bodom.
But while they clearly have their influences, don’t mistake that for a weakness, because they definitely were able to carefully align influences with originality and let the music breathe when it needs to and not get ahead of themselves and the vocals compliment each piece of music so wonderfully that it makes you actually pay attention to every word (even when he’s scream/growling.) I’ve now gone through this album three times and am finding nuances to the music every time that I didn’t hear before.
Like I said, I don’t know if they went out to make a masterpiece, but it truly is that, from start to finish you will find yourself never skipping ahead.
