It’s been a while since I heard a quality, old school, pure modern melodic death metal album  — and no, In Flames does not count. Here is Poland’s Made of Hate attempting to solve just that with their sophomore effort and they meet with a measure of success.

Though glossed with a little thrash and a little, dare I say some form of modern nu-ish metal and some rather odd vocals, Pathogen is all about some pretty nifty little melo-death riffs and solos. Guitarist Michal Kostrzynski is clearly the centerpiece of the band and the album. The guy pretty much fills each of the nine tracks with plenty of chunky but melodic riffs and shreddage that reminded me of Omnium Gatherum‘s early stuff.

From opener “Friend” (3:30 in), the catchy main riff of “Russian Roulette”, more somber “I Can’t Believe”, dancing opening riff of “Lock n Load”, nice little arpeggio bridge surface about 43 seconds into “False Flag”, chord progressions and galloping mid-section of “Questions”, the album is just a dang likable display of melodeath that works as a welcomed break from deathcore, brutal death metal and dissonant black metal. I’d almost forgotten what a simple, hooky riff actually sounded like!

Unfortunately some of this very enjoyable guitar work comes at a price; vocalist Radek Polrolniczak. His vocals are this sort of winded gruff half shout (with the odd spoken word or clean shout as heard in “You, Departed”) that simply sucks the life out from much of the otherwise quality material. This vocal buzz kill is a crying shame as most of the actual music is rather enjoyable, confidently played and well written — an example of a genre long thought dead, dying or simply absorbed by metalcore. If these guys change the vocalist (or Polrolniczak gets his act together) it’s going to be smooth sailing as there’s some really evident promise here — on the merit of the guitar work alone.

Thankfully, there’s a bonus track that is an instrumental reprise of “Russian Roulette”. Now, if only there would have been another seven like minded bonus tracks…

 

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