Album Review: Heaven Shall Burn - “Deaf To Our Prayers”

Considering how popular Entombed has been, and the reputation that Dismember has upheld, I was always surprised that we haven’t heard any metalcore influenced by old-school European death metal.

Now for a melodic metalcore band to take into account the evolution some old-school European death metal bands have gone through to become full fledged melodic death metal, the concept of adding more of an old-school European death metal influence is in a way a safer direction to go than to bring in some completely foreign element, while at the same time exploring some new territory.

Right out of the gate, Heaven Shall Burn comes out blazing a steady pulse of near-blast style beats that would fit perfectly with, you guessed it, old-school European Death Metal. I have to say, it comes off as a bit faster than usual. The guitar work features many tremolo picked styled riffs played in a somewhat slightly simpler than usual manner for the sake of being heavy. The dual guitar work then moves to riff supported melodies mixed in with dual guitar harmonies. There are some moments where a few of those harmonies could’ve been stolen right from some of the top tier melodic death metal giants. The distortion seems to take a bit of a stab at the classic “double distortion” of old. The distortion doesn’t quite reach those levels, but the guitar tone definitely comes off heavier than most metalcore bands. On top of all that, vocalist Marcus Bischoff seems to be doing his best Thomas Lindberg impression.

As strange as it sounds, hearing “Deaf To Our Prayers” actually gives me the feeling of being transported back in time as opposed to sounding dated, even with some of the breakdowns added. It’s especially strange because they aren’t attempting to sound like any specific moment in the history of melodic death metal, but instead bring in those times just before many old-school European death metal bands morphed into melodic death, all the way to the time when melodic death metal was considered to have reached its artistic peak.

Even with all the melodies and harmonies present, Heaven Shall Burn seems to have portrayed a sentiment on “Deaf To Our Prayers” that was the goal of many death metal bands in the 90's, attempting to make themselves faster and heavier with each passing.

3.5/5

Heaven Shall Burn
Heaven Shall Burn At MySpace
Heaven Shall Burn At Century Media