Despite - In Your Despite 4/5

01. MindPlague 3:39 02. Rain 4:58 03. Beast In The Cage 3:33 04. Mechantical 2:30 05. Crehate 4:21 06. Rise Above 3:37 07. No Fucking Way 2:05

Ahh, Sweden. Have they ever let us down in terms of death metal? From the moment that the intro to ‘MindPlague’ sweeps in and impacts your lugholes, you know this EP is going to be a good listen. Hailing from Gothenburg (come on, where else?), Despite are a beardy five-piece melodic death metal band. You’ve heard it all before, you say? Hold on there, because there’s more than that going on here.

On first listen, they sound like In Flames - which there’s nothing wrong with. But it’s only when you listen to the intricacies woven throughout the sonic bombast that you can fully appreciate this record. The aforementioned opening track features a mellowed middle eight in which Alex Losb‰ck’s vocals come remarkably close to those of Ozzy Osbourne, while the guitar parts of ‘Rain’ could have been lifted out of the System Of A Down textbook. Not that there’s no originality here - it’s just impressive how such different sounds are all encapsulated within the traditional death metal refrains.

The energy displayed by the band is inspiring, to say the least. ‘Rise Above’ has one of those riffs any budding axeman will instantly want to learn how to play (and will probably end up on Guitar Hero one day if fortune smiles upon these Swedes), while closer ‘No Fucking Way’ has one of those violent-yet-uniting metal choruses: ‘I’ll make you fucking pay / I’ll spit on your grave’. Lovely jubbly.

The whole thing feels like being ravaged by a wild animal for about twenty-five minutes - perhaps ‘Beast In The Cage’ is autobiographical in a sense? From the sound of ‘In Your Despite’, it’s one that wants to be let loose on the world and isn’t going to stay confined for much longer. Ones to watch.

Genre : Death Metal

Article by Andy McDonald