Prior to this month, I had no idea who Rottweiler Records or Florida’s Death Requisite were. But In comes the ‘here’s some shit for you to review’ email, I see the ‘symphonic death metal’ keyword and I check it out, as I a sucker for symphonics in any kind of metal.

So what we have here then is a band who have been around since 2000, released an album in 2001, but have been fairly sporadic since and just released their sophomore album via Rottweiler Records. Then, I come to find out the band and label are Christian, but hey ho, no worries as I’d already given the album a few spins and rather enjoyed it.

What we have musically, is a weird enjoyable mix of melodic, but beefy death metal with lots and lots of Gothic, Dimmu Borgir-y keyboards and choirs. To these ears it came across as Vehemence meets Crematory (or other 90s Nuclear Blast goth/death metal) or Dead Blue Sky (which makes sense as both acts released albums in 2001 and have heavy keyboards). And I’m about to drop the King Kong of obscure band name drops here on you, those familiar with the local Dallas metal scene, the act Dei Aemeth also spring to mind.

I can’t compare to the 2001 album or anything since, (though it appears the prior vocalists were more black metal sounding) but I found the whole thing very enjoyable. The guitars have a big nice crunch to them, and the vocals of Vincent St James are powerful and  deep but understandable, really imbuing Nathan Gearhart from Vehemence, as well as the overall mix of melodic death metal and more brutal moments. Other than a few acoustic bits here and there, it’s free more typical, obvious Christian tropes or clean vocals, and if I had not researched the band or label, I would have been none the wiser simply enjoying the likes of “Veneration”, “Redemptio Per Deicide” surprisingly brutal penultimate track “Castigation”.

The CD ends with a 17 minute purely symphonic number, “Recapitulation”, and while it initially comes across of filler, accounting for a large chunk of the album, it is actually a very nicely done piece of epic, cinematic music, and comes across like Fleshgod’s Apocalypse‘s orchestra only CD version of King from earlier this year. In all, a surprisingly little release and better than the other one the label sent me, Becoming Saints, which is little more than Demon Hunter with ex Soul Embraced bassist Jeff Bowie. Still- a label I’ll be checking in on on in the future.

[Visit the band's website]

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