Danish Metal Pages

Grade: 4/6

The music of Compos Mentis has its roots in the early Swedish melodic death metal. A comparison to bands like Dark Tranquility and early In Flames seems rather fair. But also elements from Aurora from Denmark, seems right. Nevertheless the band doesn't sound like a clone of those before mentioned. They personalized the style, actually making it sounding very refreshing! The sound is very busy on this album. Constantly there's slight variations, and keyboards that both supports the guitars by creating floating soundscapes in the slower parts and by playing along the guitars during aggressive moments. This creates an interesting mix of aggressive blackmetal elements and melodic death metal. But still there's plenty of room for slow, doomy passages as well. It's all spiced with aggressive vocals and once in a while some spoken words. The band clearly has talent for writing variated and catching songs. The genre is perhaps overrepresented at the moment, but this is definitely one of the better representants. Absolutely worth checking out if you enjoys swedish-styled melodic death/black metal!!
- Claus Poulsen