Black Breath - Sentenced To Life

Black Breath was mighty impressive with their debut full length, 'Heavy Breathing', and they have carried that on with the equally impressive 'Sentenced to Life'. An album so full of that great fuse between Swedish death metal and hardcore that this may certainly put them above the likes of Trap Them, The Secret and co.

The riffs are dark and crunchy and shift in tempo between the plodding catchyness of a song like 'Forced Into Possession', or the twirling fast paced tremelo eeriness of a song like 'Sentenced To Life'. And if songs like these don't hammer your glass jaw like the hammer shattering the glass on the album cover, then 'Home of The Grave' will slowly lift you high into the air with its slow opening dark atmospheric melody before the fast paced riffs launch you into the glass instead. And let this action be repeated as the song shifts in tempo throughout.

Vocally, it is still your hardcore throat which I like as it certainly helps add variety to the album. It doesn't feel like just another death metal album in this case. That hardcore element should appeal to fans of both styles if they are willing to step out of their box for a while. The other elements to the vocals I like are some of the chanting like choruses where the song title is repeated, for example in songs like 'Feast Of The Damned' and 'Sentenced To Death'. And some of those raw throaty yells have some real force behind them. Painful.

I also like the way the drumming goes along with this. The way the tempo shifts between songs gives the impression that the drumming leads the way at times. Listen to 'Of Flesh' for example to hear what I mean. At times the drumming just takes total command and swerves into into a doom like feel and the guitars just crush along with it. Or even on 'Doomed' where the drumming is swirling around and it almost feels like it is dragging along the riffs with it. Awesome stuff!

The 33 minutes this album goes for feels like it goes for 13 minutes as it all goes so quick.. but that's okay because once I'm done, I want to listen to it again. Overall, this album is dark, at times chilling, at times raw and brutal and sometimes crushing. This album has the makings to remind me of a modern day 'Like and Ever Flowing Stream' or 'Clandestine', only it has a few different touches to appeal to more than just death metal liking ears.

Ikil