Misery - On Demon Wings

Rating: 6.0

Country: Italy

Release Date: 2007

Track list:
1. The Awakening towards Death
2. Sleep of the Vile
3. The cold Dagger's Blade
4. Tomb of Soul
5. The half-Redemption
6. The Stake of Sorrow
7. The Messenger of lost Hate
8. Misanthropic Elevation
9. The deceptive

Band Website: Stillness' Blade

Stillness' Blade - The First Dark Chapter (Misanthropic Elevation)

Anthony Dwyer - Drums
Scott Edgar - Guitar
Damon Robinson - Bass, Vocals

So Stillness' Blade are an Italian death metal band and going by their album artwork, I expected their music to be far worse. They even seem to have some sort of an ingenious murder concept thing going on where almost every song of theirs has an intro and going by the noises heard in it, each of which is supposed to have a “precise meaning”, one is capable of figuring out how the murder takes place and the weapon that is employed for it. For instance, if you hear gunshots in an intro, you should be smart enough to know that a gun was used to execute the murder and be really thrilled and pleased about the whole thing.

Sadly, Stillness' Blade have a very typical way of writing songs. After the unavoidable intro, you are very likely to have lightning-fast bursts of blasting following which the music evolves into playing shockingly good death metal parts sounding very similar to the ones on Monstrosity's In Dark Purity album and at other times bearing close resemblance to the Sinister style of riffing. Boosted by a crunchy production, these invigorating thrashy parts sound quite scrumptious, but are usually followed by mellow parts that are more often than not black metal-tinged or of an upsettingly melodic nature. Then the music reverts to the supersonic blasting to finish off the song just the way it had started.

Indeed, for the sake of having many songs, the different sections in them are slightly interchanged or altered every time, and while there is a certainty of having an absolutely gorgeous part in each of the songs, there are also those dumb melodic parts invariably ruining the momentum and making you look stupid for being so excited about it in the first place. Especially in the second half of the album starting with the song, “The Messenger of Lost Hate”, the music wonderfully showcases their Slayer influences in the ruthless form of Brazilian death metal acts such as Rebaelliun and Krisiun, and admittedly there is an immense pleasure to be had when Stillness' Blade get in that mode.

If you're like me, chances are you will like The First Dark Chapter's good moments just as much as you would hate its not-so-good moments, if only for not allowing the good times to continue when they very well could, thus exasperating the listener. Stillness' Blade should seriously ditch the theatrical intros and tone down on their attempts at interweaving melody with the heavy parts. Then they must wholeheartedly embrace their fearsome death metal side and subsequently build up on the rabid thrash/death metal parts that they are so effortlessly able to create.

June 26th, 2008