Welcoming vocalist Mikael Sehlin to the fold to replace Magnus ‘Mangan’ Klavborn, and fattened up by the production skills of founder, songwriter and guitarist Niclas Engelin of In Flames fame, Engel’s fourth album reveals the Swedes in a different guise, no longer relying on the fad of dubstep that appeared on 2012’s Blood Of Saints.
Mikael has done an impeccable job on the knobs, giving the deathly industrialists a slick sound bound together by stuttering riffs and electro hooks while mashing up the caustic melody of In Flames with BMTH-style cyber attitude – although Niclas’s distinctive fretwork takes a backseat as a result.
Salvation explodes in a breakneck bluster of screams and Gothenburg scene riffs, while Denial is groovy to the hilt and tears along like a rabid Rottweiler, all suggesting that a change is indeed as good as a rest.
Via Gain Music
