Reviews
2006-03-23
Finland's Sear have created a brutal and aggressive piece of work, in this, their debut album, combing motifs from both black and death metal, most of the time – it works, sometimes, it doesn’t.
A few good things about the band, they can play their instruments, not overly flashy, but they sure do manage to create interesting riffs and dark sounding melodies, the album does start a bit shaky with the opening track, which does have a good chorus but little more, and the more aggressive "Bless The Child" which simply goes too far into aggression and leaves a good song forgotten.
Its from the third track, “Scythe Of Blasphemy”, that things start taking a turn into a more interesting direction, the band's infusion of death metal into their mostly black tinged riffs works really well, and the good, crunchy sounds doesn’t hurt either.
Some biffs about the vocals, they're all over the place, the guy can't decide if he's a death metal growler or a black metal screamer, and it tends to mix things up a bit too much at times, good thing the rest of the band know their stuff and keep a tight playing ability throughout.
Lyrically the album is as extreme as the band's music, but they definitely need a clearer direction and something more unique, in any case its still a solid extreme metal album, and a pretty good start for a debut.
Alon Miasnikov
