Here’s the second best record I got from Poland’s Lifeline records, and like the excellent Alienacja record Blades Shall Speak; an awesome digipack holding some solid melodic death metal meets deathcore.
Where as Alienacja are (were) a pummeling merciless more death metal beast, fellow Poles ITE, are a more refined melodic, slicing creature with a less burly, but still solid production delivering At The Gates inspired hack ‘n’ stab riffage littered with solid, if unremarkable breakdowns.
High pitched rasps with the occasional deep growl are the par for the course vocals, while musically the band is slightly above average with tracks like “The Hour of Retaliation” “The Hollow Man”and “On the Verge of Judgment” certainly are better than the 100’s of other US based myspace melodeath/deathcore bands simply throwing breakdowns and growls around and hoping they will stick. Still, the self explanatory “Prelude” and “Ballad” are cliched. The tracks seem to have some depth and development rather than string of riffs and random breakdowns thrown together.
Hopefully, ITE won’t follow the US trend and break up after one album as this debut shows some proimise and energy that I would like to see the band build on for future releases.
Again, my hats off to Lifeline Records for great packaging and artwork.
