Nightrage - Wearing A Martyr's Crown

May 6, 2009

Reviewer: Jesse

Nightrage is an interesting specimen.  They’ve become “one of those bands.”  You know, you’ve seen it before; one original member, rotating door at vocals and a new album every other year.  Throw in the fact that they play a style of metal whose popularity is dying down after being ridiculously watered-down in a very short amount of time and you have to wonder where the drive comes from.  The end result is generally the same with each new release.  The difference is that I’ve always heard a little more talent and conviction in Nightrage’s material than in their Gothenburg (Gothenburg melodic death I mean, they’re from Greece) peers.  It doesn’t usually translate into good or great albums; instead, it comes to light in brief flashes of impressive musicianship and leaves just as quickly as it came.  Something always seems to catch my attention and then I’m left listening to the rest of the album hoping that I might hear it again, but it never happens.

On the previous album, A New Disease is Born, they introduced a new element: clean vocals along side the typical snarled melodic death vocals.  It sort of took me by surprise, but it ended up giving them a ton of personality in a field where that’s nearly impossible to do and they didn’t overdo it either.  It was just enough to show that they were trying out new things and for a moment, it seemed to work.  Now enter the new album, Wearing a Martyr’s Crown, and… where did it go?  Yet another new singer has been recruited (who couldn’t be any more bland and generic by the way), and they’ve taken a step back; a step back that they can’t afford to take, not in this style.  Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not at all trying to say that simply adding some clean, melodic singing had made them the most unique band ever, but anything to change up the pace in this riff-pillaged genre is positive.

Moving on.  Wearing a Martyr’s Crown is a fairly paint-by-numbers melodic death album where you’ll see any number of similarities to the genre as a whole.  Occasionally aggressive, but mostly tame, the songs are littered with melodic leads that dance around subtle and predictable crescendos.  Actually, they’re more like slight inclines that lead to nothing risky.  If metal were a ski resort, Gothenburg melo-death would be the bunny hill where the beginners still trip over nothing and the occasional drunk idiots will slide down on their stomachs in their boxers while their girlfriends hold the video camera to either get good footage for their wedding reception or to show the paramedics how they broke their necks.  In other words, sure it’s fun for a little while and even the occasional divot in the snow might force you to react quickly, but after one or two rides down, you’re ready to move on to something a tad more challenging.  The strange part when listening to Nightrage (as mentioned above) is that it seems like they feel the same way.  Two or three pretty interesting, catchy tracks before they realize that they’re stuck trying to record an entire album and begin to get disinterested and lose focus.

I’m not sure how much more of this style I can attempt to give a fair shake to.  I feel like I’m starting to understand the definition of insanity… you know, doing something the same way over and over and expecting different results?  And hey, that’s solely on me.

Release Date: June 25th, 2009
Label: Lifeforce Records

TRACK LISTING

1.  Shed the Blood
2.  Collision of Fate
3.  A Grim Struggle
4.  Wearing a Martyr's Crown
5.  Among Wolves
6.  Abandon
7.  Futile Tears
8.  Wounded Angels
9.  Mocking Modesty
10. Failure of All Human Emotions
11. Sting of Remorse

Total playing time:51:42

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