TRACK LISTING

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*Comments:

1.  The Will to Potency
2.  Blood of Lions
3.  The Great Execution
4.  Descending Abomination
5.  The Extremist
6.  The Sword of Orion
7.  Violentia Gladiatore
8.  Rise and Confront
9.  Extinção em Massa
10.  Shadows of Betrayal

Total playing time:  61:57

Release Date: October 31, 2011
Label: Century Media Records

Krisiun - The Great Execution

Reviewer: Jesse

November 29, 2011

Krisiun is a band that has adhered to the do-one-thing-and-do-it-well concept for nearly their entire existence and was probably the last death metal band anyone would have expected to “shake things up” so to speak. I alluded to that, in fact, in my review of Southern Storm a few years ago; that anyone looking for Krisiun to step out of their proverbial box would have to wait. Well, I guess that wait is over eh? Now before we get a little too carried away with this, The Great Execution is still Krisiun to a large degree (there are no female vocals or accordions here) and to the untrained ear, especially a casual death metal fan, it could easily pass for another typical Krisiun album being played in the background. However, when you have a band who have become synonymous with one specific style over a time-span of seven albums, any slight deviation from that style is going to appear massive.

The Great Execution is by far their longest album full of the longest songs they’ve written and that simple trait alone is enough to raise eyebrows. Just a quick glance at the length tells you this won’t be just another Krisiun album. But after sitting through this marathon of an album over and over, the only thing that stands out is the fact that it’s long. It’s Krisiun slowed-down and stretched-out and I’m sorry, but without throwing some wrinkles into the song-writing, that’s not a good thing simply on its own. You can’t just tell a brutal death metal band to slow it down and milk the songs for another minute or two and expect it to work. There are plenty of flashes of biting riffs that make you think that this is going to be a truly epic piece of work, but then the militant blast beats flood the air and the song loses any personality it might have been building. The title track is a perfect example of this and like the song before it, “Blood of Lions”, repeating a riff over and over at the end and layering some whammy bar solos over them is a very cheap way of extending the song.

Very few of the tracks on The Great Execution have any kind of memorable personality. The blueprint seems to be to needlessly elongate each song and throw in an ill-fitting thrashy solo somewhere. Granted, the lack of memorable moments could easily be said of a Krisiun album prior to this, but at least that Krisiun is what it is and nothing else. You either like brutal, blasting death metal or you don’t. The Great Execution is easily one of the more banal and tiresome death metal albums I’ve heard in a while. The entire thing seems forced and I daresay pretentious if it weren’t so incredibly bland. Don’t get me wrong, I applaud the effort, I really do, but Krisiun is a one-trick pony and I really like that one trick. I can get epic death metal other places.