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Released on September 26, 2014 via Napalm Records
Allegedly a Gormathon is a beast that is a hybrid of an Angel and a Fighter, which turns out to be a pretty accurate description of what the band themselves are all about as despite the album cover, name, image (all hair and beards) and promotional videos giving the impression of a death metal act they have more association with power metal.
Not that this is a bad thing as the second album Following The Beast from these Swedes takes the power metal template and gives it some much needed “oomph” by incorporating elements of melodic death metal into the mix.
Opening track ‘Remedy’ dispenses with any sort of needless intro tape and gets straight to business with a chugging European heavy metal riff and the song alternates between chug and melodic harmonies at a constant mid paced tempo with the vocalist switches between growl and clean vocals. It’s a good song, but it’s ponderous nature that drags on somewhat is not the explosive introduction the album called for…
…‘Land Of The Lost’ makes up for this with an immediate buzzing melo death riff that demonstrates much needed intent and provides propulsion to the band dynamic, which merges well with the vocals especially when the soaring epic chorus kicks in – if there is one thing this band excel at is massive hook laden choruses courtesy of frontman Tony Sunnhag impressive clean range – Sharp and to the point, which is complimented nicely by the comically titled ‘Hellbender’ that gets a serious groove on with some tasty up-tempo death metal RIFFAGE that once again leads into a soaring chorus.
‘Break The Chains’ slows down the pace into a chugging groove that will make head bangers squeal in delight while the chorus section delves into full on power metal ballad territory and is a decent change of pace as ‘Celestial Warrior’ kicks back into full throttle even with it’s almost nu metal staccato sections in the verse
It’s at this point that the Achilles hill of the beast begins to show, as although the songs are well written and the vocal hooks are massive, the music itself, while expertly played (including some fine solo’s), falls into “generic euro metal 101”. Unfortunately this means without a truly stand out memorable RIFF the album loses momentum about half way through and certainly doesn’t help that ‘Absence Of Trust’ borrows heavily from Dark Tranquillity. In fact the most individual track is the rock n roll finale ‘Warlords of Doom’, which would have worked wonders higher up the running order.
Gormathon set out to provide “something different that the metal scene is missing” and on an individual song basis they succeed, but it’s a shame this doesn’t quite come together as a whole.
