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INVICTUSHEAVEN SHALL BURNCentury Media CDThe expectations for 6th full length of these German melodic Death / Core heavyweights have been pretty high, considering the amount of success Heaven Shall Burn has reached with their previous outing „Iconoclast“ which took their popularity to the next level. No surprise there since that was probably the best HSB album ever but in all honesty, it was the perfection of the formula that they have found out on 2004. release „Antigone“ which has given the definition of Heaven Shall Burn that most people know and love. In that aspect, we can compare them with, say, Motorhead or Bolt Thrower – „if it ain't broken don't fix it“ as the old saying goes; so without any bigger surprise „Invictus“ presents the continuation of the road that was already taken in the past (by the way, this is the third part of „Iconoclast“ story – the full name of the album is „Invictus (Iconoclast III)“). That approach kinda turned me off a bit in the beginning since I was still bearing „Iconoclast“ in mind and compared „Invictus“ to it, but as I gave the album a little time it started to fully unfold to me. The first thing that has attached me to "Invictus" is, as always with HSB, enormous doses of adrenaline pumping sections coming from ultra heavy breakdowns combined with Swede guitar parts, this album really got me going and moshing all over like a maniac. So you see that Heaven Shall Burn naturally kept the main ingredients of their sound intact, but careful listener will catch some nice twists and turns thrown in for a good balance of the album. Take for example „Combat“ and „The lie you bleed for“, both songs combine large doses of heavy electronic beats (similar to approach from „Murderers of all murderers“) and blasting Black Metal parts – all in the same tracks! This may sound like a bit clumsy move to you but believe me that this experiment truly paid off, especially „Combat“ has the potential to become stable in Heaven Shall Burn live set. On the other hand, „Given in death“ is surprisingly mellow number which features guest female vocals of Sabine (Deadlock), very emotional song about mercy killings and church views on it and it is one more well done venture into uncharted territories. The rest of „Invictus“ is, as I have stated above, Heaven Shall Burn at their crushing best with lots of monstrous tracks like „Omen“, „Return to sanity“... The lyrical aspect is, as always, highly socially aware and features stories about Sevastopol, Pinochet, child soldiers... but I will wait for the whole packagefor the more detailed analysis. I must compliment the performance of band members and especially drummer Matthias, he was always the weakest link in my eyes as he sounded sometimes sloppy in the fast parts, but the man truly tightened and bettered his performance, so thumbs up for him. I think that all is clear – while not their very best, „Invictus“ is logical addition in Heaven Shall Burn discography and shows that the guys are still ready to spit their venom on all injustices of the world and couple it with equally intense soundtrack. I predict that it will keep their good status intact and my only hope is to finally catch them somewhere live to feel that energy rush in person. Trifunovic Slobodan (9) |
PUBLISHED ISSUESMETAL SOUND #mpu vorbereitung |
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