Disease Illusion - "Backworld" Review

This Italian melodic death metal bad is influenced by the legendary Gothenburg sounds from bands such as Dark Tranquillity and In Flames. This is the debut full-length from these Italian metallers. Going from 2006, the band changed their name from ‘The Slayers’ to Disease Illusion, and this change, including that of the main vocalist, also instigated a change from heavy and thrash metal to the melodic death metal they play today.

The album starts off typically melodic, with slow guitars and drums which build into a crescendo, getting faster and harder until the introduction of the main vocals, a scream of sound that takes over and is meshed within the instrumentals. The vocals then move to a deeper scream, with more depth and the ability to catch some of the lyrics, which is different, but in a good way. 

The guitar/bass/drums are expertly played by the band members and none of them overwhelm the other, the mixing on this album being a near perfect as you can get. At some points, it does feel more epic than melodic, especially with the big intros for most of the songs. The constant guitar riffs provide depth to each of the songs, using the skills of the guitarists perfectly. The drum beat behind is a constant rhythm that fits neatly beside the bassist’s skilled playing. 

At no point does this album disappoint. It has the power and the passion of the Italian, mixed with the sound of more prominent bands, but within that they make it their own.

Review from brutalism.com

Malefice - “Awaken the Tides” Review

England’s Malefice are back with their catchy brand of death metal with the release of their second album through Metal Blade Records “Awaken the Tides”. Although there seems to be some argument over how exactly to categorize Malefice; I’ve seen them described as ‘death metal’, ‘heavy metal’, ‘deathcore’ and ‘thrash metal. For this website’s sake we’ll just make it simple and call ‘em ‘melodic death metal‘. Anyway, these guys are great. I know that sounds fairly succinct, but it’s true! This was my first opportunity to sample Malefice and I will definitely list them as one of my favorite metal bands of 2011.
Malefice blends different subgenres of metal and they do it damned well; which is why I’m assuming it’s so hard to classify them. Although they can be a little too poppy for me at times (as in tracks “Minutes” and “The Day the Sky Fell”), the rest of the album fucking rocks. If you don’t like the title track “Awaken the Tides” from the new Malefice album, then you won’t like the rest of it.