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By JEFF MAKI
About one minute into this album I started to realize that this isn't the Nightrage I remember. The melodic death band previously released two albums on Century Media Records: 2003's Sweet Vengeance and Descent Into Chaos in 2005. The title of the new album alludes to the band's rebirth with a new vocalist, Jimmie Strimmel, and record label, Lifeforce Records. Strimmel has big shoes to fill, replacing the mighty Tomas Lindberg (At The Gates) who provided vocals for the band's first two albums. They are still melodic death at heart, but the sound of A New Disease Is Born seems to be Americanized to some extent.
The opening track, “Spiral,” incorporates clean vocals, a trend that continues through a portion of the record, which ventures into metalcore sound similar to American heavy-hitters All That Remains. This fucker is fast and riff-heavy, but the band adds many new dynamics. Just take a listen to “A Condemned Club”'s acoustic guitar work, then Strimmels' high-pitched wails backed by crushing guitars. This is followed by the classic Swedish metal of “Scars of the Past,” which would have been right at home on In Flames' Come Clarity. Same goes for the awesome guitar riffs and solos of “Surge of Fury.” Strimmel's vocal stylings are closest to Anders Friden (In Flames) or Peter Dolving (The Haunted). This dude is only 26 years old, according to the band's official web site, so there is plenty of screaming left in his pipes. Co-founding guitarist Marios Iliopoulos lays out some great melodic playing and solos that shatter your windows. The melodic lead in “Scathing” is the kind of shit that these metalcore or Swedish metal bands only wish they could play. The album closes with the title track, a good contrast from the album's title and style, as it is a beautiful acoustic piece.
The album loses some steam, but, overall, it's a furious and determined effort from this new incarnation of Nightrage. Strimmel sounds like a veteran of melodic death, not someone making his debut. There's nothing musically groundbreaking here, but these guys know what the hell they're setting out to play and they do it to near perfection. This disease may not be new, but it's deadly. |
