From Italy comes the Death Metal band THE MODERN AGE OF SLAVERY. The band is signed to Pavement Entertainment and has just released their second CD, "Requiem For Us All".
The first thing you notice about this album is the absolute crushing wall of sound that it delivers. This is, hands down, one of the most bruising things I have heard this year yet. The breakdowns are furious, the vocals are menacing, and the guitars rip your thought process to shreds.
Listening to this, I heard both good and bad things:
GOOD: The breakdowns. They are, as stated above, absolutely furious. The lyrics are well written, violent, and let you know the band is not pleased with the current state of society. The solos are well done. This is just a bruising record to listen to.
BAD: A lot of these songs are very, run of the mill generic sounding. The songs all sort of run together in a big blur without really changing the pace up much to distinguish between tunes. Basically, I was writing this review and by the time I made it this far, I had reached "Opiate For The Masses" without really noticing the songs had changed.
This is a very good CD even with the bad elements. It is well produced, a great example of the current Death Metal / Deathcore genre. This is, in fact, one of the better, more technically proficient bands that I have heard from this genre. This delivers exactly what you expect from a Death Metal record: crushing sounds, straight ahead, in your face vocals, and brutality on all levels. It's also minus the artsy-fartsy, diddling yourself guitar antics adopted by many of the genre's current bands.
I would recommend this for anyone that is a fan of brutally heavy music.
Tracklist:
1. Requiem For Us All 2. The Dawn Prayer 3. Obedience 4. The Silent Death Of Cain 5. Ivory Cage 6. Opiate For The Masses 7. Slaves Of Time 8. Icon Of A Dead World 9. Requiem To My Nation 10.Arise (Sepultura cover)