Athorn - Phobia

Artist: Athorn
Title: Phobia
Genre: Melodic Death Metal
Release Date: 17th September 2010
Label: AFM Records



Album Review

‘Phobia’ is ATHORN’S debut album. Hailing from Germany, this group plays aggressive metal mixed with harsh roars and cleaner, power metal styled vocals. Their first album is an energetic ride that is both complex and yet simple. By taking a simple formula that features heavy music surrounded by both harsh and clean vocals, the melodic death metal pattern is all-too-familiar. However, ATHORN make sure that they don’t straight up copy from other bands. Sounding like DARKANE mixed with NEVERMORE, ATHORN’s album will sit well with fans of both harder metal and a slightly more operatic side of melodic and power metal.

The most recognizable track on this album will probably be ‘Humanize the Demon’, one of the band’s first “singles”. The music is heavy, but easily accessible as far as listening goes. The guitars are melodic, the vocals mostly focus on the cleaner singing than the snarls, and there’s even a bridge where the guitar solo is progressive and breaks away from the chugging. The clean vocal work sounds like a mix between Warrel Dane of NEVERMORE and Ville Laihiala of POISONBLACK. In contrast, the harsher vocals sound like the nu-metal based screams from a band like MUSHROOMHEAD crossed with FIVE FINGER DEATH PUNCH. In combination, this is enjoyable. Most of the music however, features aggressive melodic death metal sounds as far as music goes with the clean and harsh vocals battling it out. The clean ones prevail most of the time, but the music makes up for any lack of aggression.

‘Emperor of Ruin’ is fast, aggressive with a melodic chorus and crushing verses. ‘The Ferryman’ is a mid paced chugger that features mostly clean vocals howling away over rock inspired riffs. It would seem that ATHORN is trying to make the album just as radio accessible as much as it can be for the audience. The best new about this though is that they do it in a way that doesn’t sound like ten other bands already putting out new albums this year. The title track is the most interesting one of all since it starts out as a prologue instrumental, very slow and very melodic, and the second half sounds more like what ATHORN has been presenting so far. However, it is still different from all the other tracks. The guitars focus more on string pickings with the drums gently beating in the background. Every once in a while though things will really slow down so the guitars can be heard individually before the other instruments pick up again.

Vocals are mostly clean singing; again this is one of easiest tracks to come to liking for anyone because they don’t feature the screaming, but it is far from being a pop radio friendly kind of tune. And for those seeking a hard balance with the soft, things pick up near the middle with a few bits of screaming and crushing guitar. It’s a fine example of melodic death metal at its finest. For a debut, one can already tell that ATHORN is headed in the right direction. The band storms in the direction that made AT THE GATES and IN FLAMES so popular, so it would not be surprising to see ATHORN rise in this same way. As long as they keep cranking out the music with intensity and balance it with enough melodies, they will become kings of the genre.


Tracklist

01. Angels of the Fall (4:30)
02. Emperor of Ruin (4:40)
03. Humanize the Demon (5:34)
04. Phobia Prologue (2:51)
05. Phobia (5:48)
06. After the End (4:37)
07. A Matter of Time (4:12)
08. From Beyond (4:53)
09. The Ferryman (5:28)
10. Schizophrenia (7:29)


Line-up

Carsten Frank- vocals
Tobias Liedke- guitar
Stefan Aedo- guitar, backing vocals
Soren Becker- drums
Thomas Maiwald- bass


Website

http://www.athorn.de/


Cover Picture




Rating

Music: 8
Sound: 7
Total: 7.5 / 10


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