Label: Golden Lake Productions (http://www.goldenlakeprods.co.uk/)
Release date: June 14th, 2004
Artist site: http://www.theenchanted.co.uk/
1. Where Fires Burn
2. The Way of the Warrior
3. In a Dream...
4. Under the Hall of the Moon
THE ENCHANTED reminds me of DESTRÖYER 666, in that they're one of those bands that, while taking great care to stay within the borders of metal music and its values, blends several styles with reckless abandon to the point where it's difficult to place the music under one convenient label.
THE ENCHANTED, on their 2004 EP For Those Who Fall..., take death metal, thrash and traditional heavy metal, add heathen-minded lyrics and end up sounding rather original. It might be tempting for some to tag them "melodic death metal" and be done with it, but that would be an oversimplification, not to mention the implicit pairing-up with the Gothenburg bands. This is something different altogether; something that in its melodicism is closer to CIRITH UNGOL than IN FLAMES, and that retains the undeniably Metal edge that IN FLAMES largely lost when attempting to fuse brutal and melodious music.
The basic building blocks of any good metal song, the Riffs, are very present and powerful here. THE ENCHANTED understand that a song without great riffs as a backbone will not work, and so most every riff on here is well-constructed, well-placed, and quite different from each other -- just listen to the opener, "Where Fires Burn," and witness how in one minute and thirty seconds we are taken on a journey from the great opening MAIDEN-esque mainriff, through some time signature weirdness, to melodic tremolo picking, and finally into headbanging fury with the souped-up-MANOWAR/AMON AMARTH style "bouncy" riff that follows. The band effortlessly segues into blastbeat fury only to end up in melodic trad metal leads five seconds later, and unlike many other bands who have tried similar things, THE ENCHANTED actually pull it off.
While all songs are good, the definite highlights here are "Where Fires Burn" and "Under the Hall of the Moon", the latter featuring epic scope with lyrics about heathen battle and some half-clean/half spoken vocals that work quite well -- and while the growl approach that is used 95% of the time is well-performed, clean vocals is something that I wouldn't mind hearing more of in this band.
If you like bands that can pull off melodicism without turning flowery, such as AMON AMARTH or DESTRÖYER 666, if you like epic pagan metal, or if you'd like to hear good death metal done with a huge sense of trad metal sensibility, For Those Who Fall... is for you... Hell, while there is room for improvement here, THE ENCHANTED took me quite by surprise, and are hugely recommended for just about everyone into quality metal.
Rating: 8.5/10
Side note: This is the first NEW review that has been added to the database of Royal Carnage 2.0... I add it here in the meantime.
Release date: June 14th, 2004
Artist site: http://www.theenchanted.co.uk/
1. Where Fires Burn
2. The Way of the Warrior
3. In a Dream...
4. Under the Hall of the Moon
THE ENCHANTED reminds me of DESTRÖYER 666, in that they're one of those bands that, while taking great care to stay within the borders of metal music and its values, blends several styles with reckless abandon to the point where it's difficult to place the music under one convenient label.
THE ENCHANTED, on their 2004 EP For Those Who Fall..., take death metal, thrash and traditional heavy metal, add heathen-minded lyrics and end up sounding rather original. It might be tempting for some to tag them "melodic death metal" and be done with it, but that would be an oversimplification, not to mention the implicit pairing-up with the Gothenburg bands. This is something different altogether; something that in its melodicism is closer to CIRITH UNGOL than IN FLAMES, and that retains the undeniably Metal edge that IN FLAMES largely lost when attempting to fuse brutal and melodious music.
The basic building blocks of any good metal song, the Riffs, are very present and powerful here. THE ENCHANTED understand that a song without great riffs as a backbone will not work, and so most every riff on here is well-constructed, well-placed, and quite different from each other -- just listen to the opener, "Where Fires Burn," and witness how in one minute and thirty seconds we are taken on a journey from the great opening MAIDEN-esque mainriff, through some time signature weirdness, to melodic tremolo picking, and finally into headbanging fury with the souped-up-MANOWAR/AMON AMARTH style "bouncy" riff that follows. The band effortlessly segues into blastbeat fury only to end up in melodic trad metal leads five seconds later, and unlike many other bands who have tried similar things, THE ENCHANTED actually pull it off.
While all songs are good, the definite highlights here are "Where Fires Burn" and "Under the Hall of the Moon", the latter featuring epic scope with lyrics about heathen battle and some half-clean/half spoken vocals that work quite well -- and while the growl approach that is used 95% of the time is well-performed, clean vocals is something that I wouldn't mind hearing more of in this band.
If you like bands that can pull off melodicism without turning flowery, such as AMON AMARTH or DESTRÖYER 666, if you like epic pagan metal, or if you'd like to hear good death metal done with a huge sense of trad metal sensibility, For Those Who Fall... is for you... Hell, while there is room for improvement here, THE ENCHANTED took me quite by surprise, and are hugely recommended for just about everyone into quality metal.
Rating: 8.5/10
Side note: This is the first NEW review that has been added to the database of Royal Carnage 2.0... I add it here in the meantime.
