Divine Rapture The Burning Passion
Listenable Records Oct 7th 2003
By Tim Blake
The oversaturated, overdone, over-inflated genre of extreme, technical death metal spews forth yet another band - Divine Rapture - and their fiery debut full-length, The Burning Passion. Churning, intense guitar bashing with wailing Slayer soloing? Check. Lord Wormish throat mangling death arggh'ing? Check. Generally blasphemous flame-mongering? Yar! All this and a hint of melody every now and then, with a touch of calm in the form of pseudo-classical interludes. It's nothing too innovative (something that I find seems to be the norm rather than the exception when it comes to the harder varieties of death metal), but by crapcakes it works extremely well - and that still counts for something.
The album gets going on a tranquil, muted note with The Kindling - a kind of calm before the storm affair consisting of gothic clangs and dancing guitar notes. It is an excellent introduction to the pulverising, churning onslaught (that's a mouthful) of the second track, Your Time Has Come. The deep, Lord Worm-style growling is evident from the get go, and is present throughout the album. Served has some stop-start time-warping going on, and an impressive, semi-melodic solo that has a curiously exotic tone. My Demon Your Dove is called in by an awesome, awesome (arr!) drum roll, and continues in much the same vein as previous songs. The Deifying, The Sorrow, The Awakening is another creepy interlude which pulls one out of the flames, just to be shoved back in with Funeral Mist. These guys, I repeat, do what they do damn well. The drumming is incredible, and helps to solidify the consensus (well, in an ideal reality), that death metal has some of the best drummers in the world. Affliction of Faith almost sounds like My Dying Bride at first, than leaps into some enthusiastic, melodic metal, tinged with deathly anger. All of the following songs continue in the same style and mode of expression laid down earlier, and are of the same high quality, at least musicianship-wise.
Divine Rapture have crafted an album that has all the attributes of death metal done well. Their songs are impeccably crafted, for the most part, and while the interludes do add some reprieve from the heaviness, technically they are quite boring and feel like filler. The Kindling is a nice opening, but The Deifying, The Sorrow, The Awakening and The Smothering are quite, well, dull and unrewarding. Also, sameness does start to set in after a while, one of the great flaws, I've found, of death that is heavy as fuck (pardon the language). Put shortly - if you like death metal of the pummelling and dexterous kind, you pretty much can't go wrong with this album, Divine Rapture have all the bases covered. Think Morbid Angel, Slayer and a hint of Dark Tranquillity. Good.
7.5/10
Official Divine Rapture Website
Official Listenable Records Website
Listenable Records Oct 7th 2003
By Tim Blake
The oversaturated, overdone, over-inflated genre of extreme, technical death metal spews forth yet another band - Divine Rapture - and their fiery debut full-length, The Burning Passion. Churning, intense guitar bashing with wailing Slayer soloing? Check. Lord Wormish throat mangling death arggh'ing? Check. Generally blasphemous flame-mongering? Yar! All this and a hint of melody every now and then, with a touch of calm in the form of pseudo-classical interludes. It's nothing too innovative (something that I find seems to be the norm rather than the exception when it comes to the harder varieties of death metal), but by crapcakes it works extremely well - and that still counts for something.
The album gets going on a tranquil, muted note with The Kindling - a kind of calm before the storm affair consisting of gothic clangs and dancing guitar notes. It is an excellent introduction to the pulverising, churning onslaught (that's a mouthful) of the second track, Your Time Has Come. The deep, Lord Worm-style growling is evident from the get go, and is present throughout the album. Served has some stop-start time-warping going on, and an impressive, semi-melodic solo that has a curiously exotic tone. My Demon Your Dove is called in by an awesome, awesome (arr!) drum roll, and continues in much the same vein as previous songs. The Deifying, The Sorrow, The Awakening is another creepy interlude which pulls one out of the flames, just to be shoved back in with Funeral Mist. These guys, I repeat, do what they do damn well. The drumming is incredible, and helps to solidify the consensus (well, in an ideal reality), that death metal has some of the best drummers in the world. Affliction of Faith almost sounds like My Dying Bride at first, than leaps into some enthusiastic, melodic metal, tinged with deathly anger. All of the following songs continue in the same style and mode of expression laid down earlier, and are of the same high quality, at least musicianship-wise.
Divine Rapture have crafted an album that has all the attributes of death metal done well. Their songs are impeccably crafted, for the most part, and while the interludes do add some reprieve from the heaviness, technically they are quite boring and feel like filler. The Kindling is a nice opening, but The Deifying, The Sorrow, The Awakening and The Smothering are quite, well, dull and unrewarding. Also, sameness does start to set in after a while, one of the great flaws, I've found, of death that is heavy as fuck (pardon the language). Put shortly - if you like death metal of the pummelling and dexterous kind, you pretty much can't go wrong with this album, Divine Rapture have all the bases covered. Think Morbid Angel, Slayer and a hint of Dark Tranquillity. Good.
7.5/10
Official Divine Rapture Website
Official Listenable Records Website
