Hailing from the tiny country of Luxemborg, Mindpatrol’s third album is an ambitious, solid, concept based album of extreme/progressive melodic death metal that might appeal to fans of Opeth, Loch Vostok, Ne Obliviscaris and other ‘kitchen sink’ bands.

As with most progressive bands, Mindpatrol’s Vulture City has a deep concept with this effort being about the story of two orphaned siblings in a dystopian future, and ties in with a German language novel written by vocalist Luc Francois. Also of note, the band has three separate guitarists, though casual listens don’t make it immediately apparent.

What is apparent is these guys are pretty good musicians and song writers as the 10 song, 50 minute album full of well produced keyboards, black metal, melodic death metal, clean vocals, thrash metal and such, though if I were to break in down by percentage, melodic death metal would have a pretty big chunk.

Opener “Mother” get the album off to a rip roaring start and is a pretty good indicator of most of the album, and its ends with a really nice melodic black metal tremolo blast. But then a couple of tracks like “Whoreheart” and”He, Summoned by the Needle”  and later on, the title track, are bit more bland and forgetful, even if they play a part in the album’s theme, they bring things down a bit. The band are far more effective and alluring when more uptempo and elegant tracks like “Her Dire Sacrifice” and “I, Observer with Crimson Hands”.

The band can bear their teeth once in a while as heard on the more menacing, death metal sounding “Calamity (The Cleansing)”, and even an almost doom like lumber as heard on the 7 minute closer ‘The Voyager”, but the heart and soul of the album is the progressive melodic death metal that has some interesting moments and certainly worth a listen.

[Visit the band's website]

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