Thursday, February 3, 2011

Demo-lition Derby: The Fevered

The Fevered
Vestige
Those of you who were crapping your Pampers at the time may not really appreciate just how revolutionary the whole Gothenberg sound was now that it’s been endlessly rehashed by eleventy-billion creatively bankrupt hardcore bands. Let me set the scene for you: Sometime around 1997 my college roommate comes flying into the dorm room gibbering incoherently about some band named In Flames and their latest album The Jester Race that I just had to hear. Keep in mind at the time brutality reigned uber alles and any hint of accessibility or a catchy tune was strictly verboten. To write albums larded with hummable melodies was almost an act of treason. We had literally heard nothing like it before and it would send us spiraling into the melodic depths of Dark Tranquillity, At the Gates and Sentenced.
I dredge up all this pointless get-off-my-lawn reminiscing because Australia’s The Fevered sound a tad like Dark Tranquillity.
Ok, they sound exactly like Dark Tranquillity.
Like if somebody was cloning Mikael Stanne and Niclas Sundin at some secret Outback facility, forcing them to write melodically-charged Swede-metal tunes as some bizarre Boys from Brazil-style experiment. While I can’t really recommend this six song EP for any other reason than pure nostalgia--the songs are defiantly 15 years out of style--the tunes are well written and performed with aplomb. “To Frailty” is a perfectly composed time capsule of the era, the growled chorus shines, the melodic leads are sterling against a bouncing rhythm. Then there’s low key eight minute kiss off “Sever the World,” which is exactly the kind of choice Dark Tranquillity would have made in the same place – and that will either be the selling point or the flashing warning signal, depending on your preferences.
You can check it out for yourself as a pay what you want download on Bandcamp (linked above). Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to dig out my copies of North From Here and Whoracle.

6 comments:

Angryaholic said...

Holy shit! Perfect timing for this one! I've been listening to alot of "slaughter of the soul" lately. I've been on a total 90s kick lately and this seriously scratches that itch!

Alex Layzell said...

Despite being rooted in metal, I never ever liked In Flames, not sure why, I liked what they tried to do, but felt irksome listening to it.

Zmaj said...

Seeing as I place melodeath among the most annoying / least interesting (sub)genres ever to create a "boom" in metal (read: shitloads upon shitloads of faceless, metal by numbers [thanks, Posehn] bands), and, well, what is today known as metalcore, perhaps I should just shut up, but hey, I still love At the Gates. In fact, I had to put them on just now after reading Angryaholic's comment 'cause i couldn't take it! It's just that I most certainly didn't put on Slaughter of the Soul. Never really got in what way their most synthetic and hollow album even got to be compared to any of the earlier shit (note that I actually like it, but it's still that). What happened other than an intense dumbing down of the whole melodeath deal? Maybe I just feel that way (biased) 'cause it created the weak, insanely popular framework for all similar bands, regardless to what At the Gates wanted to do with the album (but this also is what it is).

Gave The Fevered a listen and found myself bored much too soon. Anybody know of some newer band improving on the concept at all? Kinda liked what Arsis did in the beginning, but they've turned to pop metal (Forced to Rock? I mean, really?).

Bill Willingham IV, Esquire said...

This is making me want to throw on the Gallery, haha. It's rainy and gray and cold outside, so that's perfect. It'll be my little audio fireplace.

@ Zmaj: Check out "In Putrescence" by Stench. It came out last year. They make me think of what would've happened if "The Red in the Sky is Ours" era ATG decided to thrash the fuck out. Wicked, bizarre guitar tone, too. Sickening in the way that Carcass tones could be (but doesn't sound like a Carcass tone).

Unknown said...

In Flames was fun when I saw them live like....eight years ago. But I'm really not into the melodic death metal sound. Maybe that's because I like neither melody or death metal. Well, melody is okay, but you know. I still want to give Wolverine Blues a fair shot though. One day.

Ryan Page said...

oh god.. maybe they come a bit closer to ATG than KSE, but jesus I turned it off after 15 seconds... It just reminds me too much of terribly shit...