Descending
New Death Celebrity

Greek band Descending are probably descending from somewhere to unleash their New Death Celebrity who is there to destroy the world, at least if we are to look at the cover art. That art was the first thing I noticed when leaving the starship and I cannot really say that it appealed to my sense of remaining which is also why it has taken such long time for me to finally get a review out on this album. Quality album says the label and we’ll tend to their comments later on (or not), it is the second album of these greeks who share their guitarist Constantine with Mystic Prophecy, not really that it matters but it may open the eyes as to how versatile this guy is in his musical endeavours. Uncompromising is another word that can be read, which is something paired with extreme metal that means it is to the letter conforming to the guidelines of the genre, uncompromising in terms of music often seems to mean horrific black metal or something similar. I think the uncompromising ones are bands like Dream Theater who never allows themselves to be bound or Unexpect who do not compromise but they are extremely boring nonetheless. But what about Descending?

There is some groove metal paired with quite traditional Death/Thrash Metal, in a sense a bit of an own sound but yet it is a rather conforming band which is becoming more and more clear the more you hear the album. The vocals are some growls which are not that impressive and some clean vocals of which I can say the same as earlier today (what I said about the growls). It is rather catchy and it is also rather heavy with lots of power almost like it is trying to hammer you down into the ground heavy. The songs are not that varied and they are ten if you count them all, the funny thing is that it takes about 45 minutes to play through those songs. Modern Thrash Metal was the description from the label and maybe with added death metal I think you are not far off the mark. Energetic catchy modern extreme metal with decent sound.

The reviews of this album has ranged from two out of ten to nine out of ten which is quite the widespread thing, it is not unified view of this album, I hold the album to being okay, not great. I think it is a quite good album, the camaraderie in the forests along with the catchiness in the choruses as well as the energy are things that lifts the songs on this album. Unfortunately the vocals are quite rubbish which lowers the ratings but the songs are till alright and I think the last one is slightly better than the rest. I think it is well made and well produced and it has a good sound and all of that, it just does not grab me as the best music does, it is ten good songs with no real bad ones but it feels in the end like quite a safe and quite an alright album.

Descending will probably not win any prises for being the most innovative or technologically advanced band but with New Death Celebrity they make an album that sounds quite good. So in the end I would say that New Death Celebrity is a good album, it has not real weaknesses but on the other hand it has no real strengths either and it ends up being quite an average album as it fails to offer me something that remains with me when I have heard this album.
Okay, not great, is a good way to describe Descending’s New Death Celebrity.