Heretic Soul - Born Into This Plague

When I first heard of the Turkish death metal band Heretic Soul, visions of brutality like Carnophage, Cenotaph, and Decaying Purity flashed through my mind.  However, after listening to the tracks on Heretic Soul's Myspace page, I was intrigued when I learned that they sounded more akin to Vader or Malevolent Creation if those bands were to incorporate a slight deathcore vibe.  I was very interested in hearing the rest of Heretic Soul's new album, Born Into This Plague, since I am usually a fan of well-written, straight-forward death metal. 

First, here's the bad news.  Unfortunately, the song quality of the rest of Born Into This Plague doesn't really compare to the tracks the band selected for its Myspace page.  There are two things that keep me from completely liking the other songs and this album as a whole:  Most of the tracks are too average / repetitive for their own good, and there is an overabundance of breakdowns throughout the album.  A majority of the songs start out decent enough, but there's just not enough happening in them to hold my interest over the course of the whole song.  Logically, this principle applies to the album itself as well.  Over the course of the first several songs the album seems pretty good, but as it continues, the album starts to become too dull.  Hearing one or two repetitive songs isn't so bad.  A whole album of them starts to get annoying.  The most obvious example of a repetitive song on Born Into This Plague is "Beyond Hatred."  This track is downright boring.  It's one of those songs that start out with a clean guitar part and whispered vocals, and continues to build until distorted guitars kick in (playing the very same riff, mind you) while the vocals change from a whisper to a growl.  It's the old quiet-to-loud nu metal trick applied in a death metal setting.  In addition to the problem of repetitiveness, the previously mentioned breakdowns rear their heads in nearly every song.  Sometimes the breakdowns fit the song and it works just fine, but other times they feel forced into the song just for the sake of having a breakdown.  I don't mind breakdowns upon occasion, but on Born Into This Plague it's a crutch that shows up way too often.

But wait...before you quit reading, there's some good news too.  For the most part Born Into This Plague is not truly bad.  It's just consistently average.  That may sound like a serious insult, but Heretic Soul definitely shows that it has potential.  The songs that initially roped me in are solid death metal songs.  "The Truth Dwells in Your Head" has cool pinch harmonic-laced riffs and blast beats while "Mental Decay" features sweet natural harmonics and catchy grooves.  These tracks are examples of simple death metal done right and prove that Heretic Soul is capable of using its skills to craft good songs.  If only the whole album were this solid.  I hope the band members strive to make their songs more interesting next time around and that they also drastically reduce the number of breakdowns.  They would be a much better band with more "death" and less "core" in their sound.  If Heretic Soul were a local band, they'd be one of the best around, and I'd go to one of their shows any day.  But they're not a local band. They're competing on an international level, and they don't quite cut it yet.  This group has the potential to become a well respected and well known band throughout the underground.  I hope Heretic Soul's members continue to hone their craft and return with a new album that will take them to the next level.

Release Date: February 23, 2010
Label: Rotting Corpse Records

TRACK LISTING

1.  The Truth Dwells in Your Head
2.  Deadliest Enemy
3.  Mental Decay
4.  Suffering From Existence
5.  Faceless
6.  Worship Me
7.  Beyond Hatred
8.  Life Becomes our Grave
9.  Twenty-One Grams

Total Playing time:  36:07

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*Comments:

August 15, 2010

Reviewer: Roswell47