Daemonicus – Eschaton
Release Date: 20th August 2021
Label: Black Lion Records
Bandcamp
Genre: Death Metal, Old School Death Metal, Swedish Death Metal.
FFO: Entombed, Dismember, Entrails.
Review By: The Wayfaerer
What is it about Sweden that makes it the perfect breeding ground for metal? The list of excellent bands that have come out of the Scandinavian country are too numerous to count. Power Metal? Sabaton, Hammerfall, Falconer, Dream Evil. Black Metal? Bathory, Dissection, Marduk. Melodic Death Metal as a whole started in Sweden with bands like In Flames, At the Gates, and Dark Tranquility. Today, bands like Arch Enemy, Amon Amarth, Entombed, Dismember, Opeth, Meshuggah, and Hypocrisy amongst many others claim Sweden as their home. So whenever I see a band from Sweden, my expectations are quite high, and that’s what I’m going to be looking at this time with Daemonicus and their latest release, Eschaton.
Daemonicus was part of what I would consider the second wave of Swedish Melodeath. Formed in 2006 by guitarists Per-Olov Wester and Jorgen Perrson, both formerly of Sanity Assassin and Sanity of Impiety. Martin Pudas of Knife in Christ fame is on Bass while David Ekevarn takes care of drumming duties. Longtime vocalist Stafan Hagstrom quit in 2019, so Wester stepped up for vocalist duties on their newest album. With all the members accounted for, let’s get into it.
The album opens with To Poison Everything, a death/thrash combo with a triumphant chorus and guitar harmonies that are a staple of Swedish Melodeath. Those familiar with the genre will also be quick to recognize the guitar tone. Yes indeed, the BOSS HM-2 pedal rears its head again, bringing to it, the unstoppable chainsaw grind to rip and tear your ears out. Of course, one of the downsides to this is that some of the band’s unique sound is taken away. You’re not using your own tone, you’re using the BOSS HM-2, like so many other bands that came before you. It’s a great tone, but you’re sacrificing your own unique tone for one that has been used before by other bands. With that out of the way, the album continues on with Reform or Die, a much more groove oriented piece with a bit of thrash thrown in for good measure. The Double Edged Sword keeps the death-thrash up but adds a bit of black metal in for a little extra kick. Heretic Trials is an anthemic piece with lots of ambient screams punctuating the beginning and end to add to the atmosphere. It’s also the first time on the track where we truly hear Pudas’ bass work in any meaningful manner. The Grand Inquisitor is another great track that I think would be better if it didn’t start with a Latin chant which just so happens to be the exact same chant used prominently in Monty Python and the Holy Grail so while I would like to take this track seriously, the chant at the beginning only makes me think of old school British humor. Not a mark against the album, but it did prevent me from appreciating the track as much as I should. It’s around this time in the album where things start to get a bit repetitive. Sacred and Secular is fine but there’s nothing to distinguish it from the rest of the album. You Know My Name has the best solo on the album, while Fate Sealed Fate ends the album with soaring twin guitar harmonies and plenty of groovy riffs to keep you headbanging from start to finish. Termination finishes the album with a haunting outro that conveys the feeling of hopelessness and despair. A great way to end, even if the sound bites could be a bit louder.
In many ways, Eschaton is another great Swedish death metal album from another of their up-and-coming talents. There’s plenty to like on this album, but at the same time, something was nagging at me in the back of my mind, and I couldn’t figure out what it was. Then I figured it out. This album sounds just like Entrails’ Rise of the Reaper album. After playing both albums back to back, and sometimes on top of each other, while there were some differences, the majority of both albums sounded eerily the same. Both bands are from Sweden, both are using the BOSS HM-2 sound, even Wester and Penki Samuelsson sound similar on vocals. I’m not saying that Daemonicus copied Entrails, but it sounds a bit too similar to be a coincidence. If they had stuck to their sound on Deadwork, this wouldn’t be a problem, but they didn’t and now I’m stuck comparing the two bands. If you’re a fan of the BOSS HM-2 chainsaw grind, you’ll love this album, but for me, I feel like this could have been a great album, if I wasn’t stuck constantly comparing it to something similar. Overall solid and I hope they improve in the future.
(4 / 5)
