Voices of Ruin – Path to Immortality

Metal Addicts’ fans that follow my reviews know that I can’t hide how much I appreciate Melodic Death Metal. I don’t know, but the constrast between the death growls with the melodic guitars is a killer combination, if you ask me the best Metal music has ever produced. Of course, to me there are zillion of combinations around Metal music that I love. This is only one of them. I tell this because if you really love Metal you are magnanimous with many kinds of Metal. Not all, obviously, but a great deal of. I also have my hate list. Not so much a hate list, I’d say, but a list of bands and subgenres of Metal I just can’t. Metallica are an exception to all rules…

Voices of Ruin with “Path to Immortality” has recently been added to my personal wish list. The album is much more Melodic than Death Metal in an objective analysis. Guitars are sharpen and very melodic with lots long interventions. Guitar duo Tom Barrett and Steve Carlton show all their prowness and ability in each intervention they do. It’s a very cohesive duo that reminds a lot the most famous guitar duos of Metal music – list them if you wish in your mind. You’ll remember lots of them, I’d say. “Into the Aether” has a great guitar passage using twing guitars and octavates followed by a calmer sequence. Memorable. Following track “Whispers” has the same grip adding some more melodic passages before the total destruction. A kind of calm before the storm. To the ones that need a reference to recognize the band’s sonance, try to remember early bands from the Gothenburg scene and you nail it. In Flames are a great reference to Voices of Ruin without the more classical music approach. Classic Metal fans will recognize many modern Iron Maiden inspirations especially regarding on the instrumentals. The end of “Whispers” tell it so. Of course there are moments that the band is more death than melodic as in “The Undoing,” but even there guitars melody bright. It’s hard to escape from such a band stapler. But don’t get me wrong, Voices of Ruin’s lyrics have the usual religious sarcasm Metal is all about.

“Path to Immortality” is a great example of the contrast and dialects that I talk a lot about. Being more melodic than their peers, Voices of Ruin show perfectly the duet melodic guitar and death growls. One m ore for Metal, I have to say. 

Voices of Ruin “Path to Immortality” was released on May 15th via M-Theory Audio.

Track Listing:

  1. Other Side
  2. Carved Out
  3. Path to Immortality
  4. Suffering Silence
  5. Reach Toward the Sky
  6. I Am God
  7. Into the Aether
  8. Whispers
  9. The Undoing
  10. Everlong

Watch “I Am God” official lyric video here:

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