Still a musical anomaly residing on Facedown Records , Finland’s Immortal Souls are four albums in to their career and have yet to truly impress me. Their form of melodic “wintery” death metal has always been solid, but I’m never craving this band. So I’m not sure what’s more impressive, the fact they are still releasing albums, or the fact they are still on Facedown Records.

Regardless, even with a thematic shift away from all things frosty and wintery–with what looks like a concept album–Immortals Souls are still a relatively middling act. Not only because pure melodic death metal is pretty much a relic now, but even in the hey day of the genre, Immortal Souls just weren’t a top notch act.

As I stated in my review of 2007’s Wintereich, Immortal Souls are a competent and suitable sounding act with a few high energy, melodic gallops contained in their polished melodeath template, but there’s simply nothing here that grabs you or stick with you. Still not helping  are the rather weak vocals of Aki Sarkioja, whose tired rasp simply lacks power. Throw that in with just predictable and formulaic melodic riffs and solos like heard on “Evil Believer”, “Absolution”, or ‘Hypnotic Atrocity”. Even when the band deliver something a little more attention getting like “Reek of Rotting Rye” or mid-paced “Last Day on Earth” , it’s just ‘OK’. That’s all…though I’m glad to see the band break out of their icy themes. That or they simply ran out of song titles that contain “Winter”, “Ice” and “Frost”.

Tack on the fact that the album is over 50 minutes long and contains some forced interludes, a cringe inducing ballad with clean vocals (“One Last Withered Rose”) and a closing 8+ minute title track, you get an album that further cements the band as one who no one would really miss if they stopped recording albums.

[Visit the band's website]

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