Feast For The Crows
When All Seems To Be Burned
6.7
I was pretty stoked the first time I heard Whatever It May Take, by Heaven Shall Burn, was really impressed with Caliban’s Vent, and very entertained by Neaera’s The Rising Tide Of Oblivion. Those three albums have probably hooked me onto the style more than any others. So sitting here with When All Seems To Be Burned, the debut full-length from Germany’s Feast For The Crows, I can’t help but feel like I’ve already been here and back again quite a few times. Even though the tunes on this album are nothing to sneeze at and pack quite a wallop, this turned out to be a very well-played, but painfully derivative affair in the end.
The aggressive, cascading rhythms found in “A Cell A Door” and “Take It Back” are both good examples of the raw power and technical virtuosity the band is capable of melding effectively, diving headlong into some respectably fierce melodic thrash metal. Closing track “Realizing The Demise” also taps into a brief Morbid Angel Heretic vibe halfway through, with riffs that stand out vividly among softer, whispered ebb-and-flow moments. Other than those highlights, there really isn’t anything else that stuck with me after this was over. Really. That was it.
It’s very by-the-book here, folks. Plentiful dueling harmonies, harshly screamed/growled vocals, relentless double-bass drumming, triplet riffs galore, even the currently popular nod to Middle Eastern melody on the track “A Feast For The Crows”. The Rape Of Harmonies Studios production is immaculate, the drums have a natural tone, solid and forceful without too much snap and clatter, and the guitars in particular have a very sharp but full feel to them. It’s almost perfect, sound-wise, which actually sort of adds to the rather humdrum quality of the material. Entertaining? Absolutely, but holy shit have we all heard this exact same fucking thing before.
If you’re a glutton for this sound, you’re going to want to give this a serious listen because you’ll more than likely enjoy it very much, since Feast For The Crows have no glaring technical flaws. But When All Seems To Be Burned just feels like a prime example of the average-to-good glut on the market of these coarsely melodic metalcore bands who seem to be so comfortable with merely playing it safe by treading such a terribly worn path, without doing a damn thing to establish any sort of individual identity of their own. Plain.
