Cadaveria - In Your Blood

[Erik]

Opening with a very heavily distored guitar we get the big feeling of this album right from the start. This album is not the traditional black metal most are used to. It actually has more thrash/death like riff structure. I have always loved Cadaveria's harsh vocals as they remind me of a tortured banshee and I would prefer to have more women drink lighter fluid and acid as it seems to do this girl wonder. There are some very black metal and symphonic moments but, to be honest I miss some of the older days of the band right when she left Opera IX (they had just made quite possibly my most treasured black metal album, The Black Opera). There is some lame ass clean singing with poppy sounding parts in songs like Anagram and the dream. I find those parts need to be skipped over as it brings down a bit of the mood. Not that she is bad at clean singing but I feel that the guitar at those parts is horrid and sounds like the age of WOW and other punk princesses. My favorite song off the album is Atypical suggestions by a dead as it is shows the use of her clean vocals as atmospheric.

Overall I think the band tried to break away from their traditional sound and somewhat succeeded. I think they simply need to avoid excessive punk influence.

65/100

[Amok]

I agree. Sometimes the more commercial side works--beginning to Laying in Black, sometimes it doesn't--the end to Laying in Black. I'm hoping they go down the thrashier side again.