In most thrashy melo-death combos, vocalists are dumped in mid-tour for other dudes, and nobody, band or audiences, notices. Not so with Mosfet. As of Sickness of Memory, the most memorable item on hand is  their singer. Go figure.

Anyway, he’s a dude somewhat tersely named Phil. This Phil, he’s all about  the cool death metal swagger, like a gene-splice of Cannibal Corpse‘s Chris Barnes and Five Finger Death Punch‘s Ivan Moody. It’s our man Phil who, after a too familiar intro straight outta Gothenburg, identifies this as  Mosfet and not Carcass, Dark Tranquility and/or Soilwork with a sprinkling of Kreator.

Smart-assedness aside, Mosfet do not suck. Nowhere near it. These Austrians have scads of energy, aggression and thrashy riffs galore. They have songwriting skills―they just write songs that sound like they’ve been written so many times before. It’s a situation made more severe due to an aversion to keyboards, to playing in other keys, to in general doing things that would make one song stand out from one another.

Sometimes, though, they’re way better than genre replicants.  “Aurora” has a big-time catchy main guitar hook and all-around smart structure. “Stillbirth” leans more towards In Flames, but in a good way, with a chorus growl becoming a bona fide melody. Okay — the hint of a melody, but it’s there, I swear it is.

I wouldn’t hector about melody if repetition wasn’t such an issue here. As in  “Lawnmower” and “My Hate”, which not only follow one another in the same key, but are also in the same general BPM and sprout riffs so rhythmically similar I kept going from one to the other to check if my iMac wasn’t fucking up in a new, annoying way. But no, it’s just a talented band being their own worst enemy, something that extends into the record’s over-compressed, overly-streamlined production, ‘rock ‘n roll’ lead guitar leads that suck the metal right out of an otherwise killer tracks and, again, that avoidance of keyboards that might add color and texture and variation to the tracks because, I’m assuming here, they think avoiding keyboards is ballsy or something.

The key to how Mosfet could shape up while staying true to itself can be heard on “King of Damnation”, which features a killer main riff that’s equal parts metal and―I kid you not―surf rock. More of this, more of the unexpected, more inspiration more what of Phil symbolizes and Mosfet could be contenders.

[Visit the band's website]

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