Review of Dew Scented - Inward

German and great thrash have been words that were never far apart from each other, i.e. Destruction, Kreator, and Sodom. Dew-Scented definitely follows the trend, although they hail to the new wave of thrash very much like The Haunted and Witchery. I know at first glance you're probably looking at the name Dew-Scented and thinking this is another Katatonia or Anathema, but be warned they are far from anything like that. This CD is unrelenting throughout the entire album. Never once do they really slow down in any of they songs. This is one thing that I really enjoy about the album. The production on this is pretty top-notch. It's not Cradle of Filth or Dimmu Borgir perfection, but it fits the album's thrashy feel quite well. Every thing is easily picked out and nothing over-shadows anything else. Floryan Müller heads the guitars up, and he does an excellent job at doing so with some killer guitar hooks. Just from listening to the first couple tracks off the album you can tell this guy took Slayer as a huge influence when writing the material. The one thing I found funny about the guitars on this album was the fact that in the first three songs ("Bitter Conflict", "Unconditional", and "Life Ending Path") there is hardly any trace of a solo, but as soon as you get to the fourth song "Inwards", that's when the solos hit. Every song from then on contains one. To me that seems quite odd, but that's not to say that the tracks without solos suck by any means; the first track "Bitter Conflict" is one of my favorites. Also the nice part about the solos is they're nice, sweet and to the point and definitely hail to the thrash solos of old with the wailing guitar sound and fast tremolo picking. My one complaint about the guitars is the fact that some of the riffs in the later tracks feel recycled from the earlier ones. Hopefully on Dew-Scented's next outing that won't be the case. Uwe Werning does a great job on the drums throwing in some sweet drum rolls and well-timed blast-beats. The drum production is solid but not to the point where that's all you hear. I like to be able to follow the drumbeats in my music, but not when it drowns out some of the guitar and sometimes even the vokills. And so that brings me to the vokills, which has Leffe Jensen at the helm. His sound is in the vain of Marco Aro from The Haunted, but he has a style all his own, and not even for a second does this guy let down. He bellows out unrelenting screams from start to finish. On to the lyrics, they're insightful, but also easily forgettable. At times you'll hear some great lines, but others aren't as impressive and seem to feed off of each other needlessly. I give it a four, because of the fact that overall the good stuff out-weighs the bad and Leffe has some great choruses that you'll have in your head for days. Overall, this is a great CD for all you metal heads out there and shouldn't be overlooked. Dew-Scented will be appearing at this years Milwaukee Metalfest and I have a feeling they're going to pull a Soilwork and draw quite a crowd. I was able to bear witness to a group of myself and about 30 others waiting for the Swedes to take the stage, only to turn into one of the biggest draws of the Festival by the time they finished. That show helped them a lot in terms of spreading their name through America and I have a feeling Dew-Scented will enjoy the same. So if you're going this year check them out. I have a feeling this won't be the last we hear of this German foursome.

Release Details

Dew Scented

Inward

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