2018 has been a busy year for melodic Swedish metal with releases from groups like Necrophobic, The Crown and At the Gates. Germany’s Fragments of Unbecoming make their presence felt with their fifth full length release Perdition Portal.  I must admit that it has been some time since I last heard a release from this group.  The opening track “Dismal” is quite kicks off with excellent dual harmony work by guitarists Sascha Ehrich and Stefan Weimer.  The track builds and continues to build in tempo as the guitars continue to crank out catchy riff after catchy riff.   Vocalist Sam Anetzberger has an excellent cadence and at times, dare I say, his death growl reminds me a bit of Dan Swano. “Towards the Leaden Sky” has almost more of a Swedish infernal black metal feel in terms of the chord progressions and drum patterns.

“Golgotha” opens with a mid-paced note flurry with galloping double kick following along.  The particular track builds into a nice circle pit part later on in the song. “Shadowfathers” opens with some continuing gorgeous guitar harmonies and percussive accompaniment.  The track has one of the cooler pre-verse parts that has that classic Swedish bounce to it.  The first time it comes through with blast beats and the second time with more a traditional thrash drum beat.  The title track, “Perdition Portal” opens up with a distorted arpeggiated guitar line with a nylon string classical guitar line eventually going over the top.  Pretty cool layering going on here.  I like the way Fragments of Unbecoming transition from modern to traditional forms of melodic death.  It is spaced out quite well throughout the album. Drummer Ingo Maier really does an outstanding job through all ten tracks on this release. The drum work blends quite nicely with insane amount of riffing going on.

“Abyssphere” is another strong track on the latter half the album.  Try not to head bang to this one, it is tough.  “All Lights Swallowed” fades in with vocal echoes and droning clean tone guitars that are singled and then double up.  Once the drums kick in a flurry of blast beats and melody ensues.  The closing track, “Calamity Choir” much like “All Lights Swallowed” opens up with a quick clean tone guitar line and then both guitars come in distorted.  The closing track has one of the most stripped down riffs on the album that reminded me of The Deftones for a split second before the phrasing changes to a scalier, notier Swedish sounding riff and then back into The Deftones riff with clean vocals over it.  Maybe a bit anti-climactic for my tastes but it is what it is.

This a release that could easily get missed just in terms of the volume of melodic death metal this year.  Perdition Portal is extremely well produced and played.  I think my only gripe with this album is the tracks tend to get a long towards the end of the album.  The flip side to that coin is that the arrangements and overall delivery makes it worth it to put the time into this record.  For anyone looking for something within this genre that isn’t specifically from Sweden this checks off all of the boxes. Give it a go.

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