Illdisposed
Sense the Darkness

A dozen album is what they have managed to create this Danish band with a career spanning over 20 years now, it will be 20 years since they released their debut in next year but now there is no occasion just a new released one and a half years after the latest release There is Light (But It’s Not For Me) which was a decent album with a few excellent track, four points for that one in our review from last year. They have once again recorded with Tue Madsen and on the face of it not much has really happened since last time around, sure the album cover is better this time but other than that it looks like it is continuing down the same path for the Subwoofer and his guys.

Neo Thrash metal is what the music files calls this musical style while the press info states that it is death metal, I am leaning towards the latter. The sound is heavy yet very refined, I would say that the product of this album is how a death metal production should sound, polished but still very aggressive making the songs come to life in a way different to how it usually sounds. But not only the sound is where the band differs from many other extreme metal bands, the singer has a very distinct way of singing, sort of growling but with a type of voice remnant of someone singing through a pillow or a carpet. That way of singing is well integrated into the music this band plays. They sound very aggressive but they still have room for very melodic guitar lines and things like that making it a dynamic album with quite the differences between the heavier stuff and the more melodic. I would say that they sound decently unique in style.

I think this album is quite good, it is interesting, powerful and melodic. I think the first track is really good but at the same time I think that this album lacks a really distinctive hit that it can be built around, the songs are overall stronger than on the previous album but at the same time there is not the same kind of great hits on this album. I also think that this album is bordering on being too long despite its groovy and sometime even catchy way of varying it.

Still, no matter how critical you are it is really difficult to find any major problems with this album, there are some drawbacks in said lack of hit song and the long playing time. These are nothing that really detracts too much from the album which I enjoy listening to as it has some amazing parts (although not really a complete song of the same caliber) and holds a generally high quality throughout.

So if you are already a fan of Illdisposed I am sure you will enjoy this, if you are a death metal fan you ought to take a close look at this as it is quite a good album well worth listening through at least once to learn about its qualities. But in the end I would say that Illdisposed once again manages to make a solid death metal album, too bad about the lack of standout tracks.

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