Deadwood Lake - Immortalised in Death
Band: Deadwood Lake
Album: Immortalised In Death
Release Date: August 16th 2019
Record Label: UKEM Records
Genre: Melodic/Atmospheric Black Metal
From: Southwest UK
Reviewed by: Igor Jakobsen for Heaps of Metal
This review I feel a bit guilty for, as it has taken far too long since I got the task until I actually had the time to sit properly down with the album and write the review.
The album is well produced, with the various instruments clear in the mix, something that is often an issue with black metal. They call themselves atmospheric black metal, however I would say they are closer to Norwegian progressive black metal and progressive extreme metal like Borknagar and Enslaved except there’s no keys. Instead they use clean guitars with various effects for the atmospheric intros and interludes. I would also want to compare them with the Irish dark metal band Primordial.
The album is a concept album, which is always cool. Here the band has chosen a very personal matter to sing about, the loss of their friend and brother Gary Powell, which I find very brave of them. The whole band is a tribute to him, which is, in my opinion, a very metal way to honour and keep his memory.
The songs are not too complicated, but still have varied enough riffs to keep it interesting, and are neither shorter nor longer than what is necessary to convey the theme of the song. Most songs are mid-tempo, but have both fast blast beat riffs and some slower parts going almost over into doom territory. The songs use well proven ways of building riffs and melody, and as such are not very innovative. They do however put together the various elements in a way that works well, and create good songs with good flow.
I like the use of melodic riffs and lead parts, and I find the solos quite enjoyable. I particularly enjoyed the bass melodies, as it is an unusual component to be emphasized in extreme metal, which brings to my mind the early albums of Swedish melodic death metal band Dark Tranquillity. They also do some rhythmic riffing that is quite cool, with rhythmic counterpoints and different emphasis in the same rhythm between the instruments, but don’t really go messing with odd time signatures, keeping it firmly in the realm of metal rather than prog.
Vocals are provided by all 3 members of the band, and give a nice variation during the album, and emphasising different aspects of the song. The darker vocals, together with the mid-tempo riffs and lead melodies makes me think of the Swedish melodic death metal band Amon Amarth, who’s fans I think in particular could find Deadwood Lake to be a band worth listening to.
Very appropriately there is a lot of melancholy in the songs, but there are also both powerful and beautiful melodies here, and I think everyone into melodic extreme metal would benefit from taking a listen to this band, which you can do at their bandcamp:
Link to facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Deadwoodlake
Link to bandcamp: https://deadwoodlake.bandcamp.com/
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