Council of the Fallen – Deciphering the Soul
Here is a band whose debut CD unfortunately got very little attention. It was a good album and having Derek Roddy on drums only helped make it better. Now Tim Yeung is handling the drums and he does a great job of course. But there is a problem here. COTF has chosen to use clean vocals on parts of a few of the tracks (numbers three and six to be exact) and it sounds totally out of place. The first time I heard it I was actually laughing out loud during these parts. At the same time I was disappointed because other than that, Deciphering The Soul is a good album. There is some catchy, technical stuff on here and it’s pretty heavy for the most part. Also worth mentioning is that COTF got a good sound on this without being overproduced. The clean vocals (which are not really used that much) do add a strong contrast to the brutal vocals used most of the time. However I prefer my death metal to be as heavy as possible at all times, not just most of the time! I am now less likely to play this CD just to avoid hearing those parts. Well enough of my bitching. Maybe some of you aren’t quite as closed minded as me. There is still some good stuff present if you can overlook the clean vocals. – Jeff Savage
SEASON OF MIST
Worm Gear 