Last year «Larceny» from southern Germany are celebrating their tenth anniversary, but for a variety of reasons, including a change in line-up, only two albums have been released so far. Now the ring is clear for round three. Exactly two years after the album «My Fall»Larceny» a successor. Since frontwoman Anna Rantou left the band, the sound is no longer reminiscent of «Lacuna Coil» and Cristina Scabbia, and is therefore more Melodic Death Metal and the level of heaviness has also increased significantly. But it would be wrong to limit "Into Darkness" to melodic death metal, because the five musicians keep trying out other subgenres and present their songs with great contrast. There are excursions into thrash as well as the deliberate omission of the prefix "melodic" when it comes to death. This time, the Baden-Württemberg band is really hitting the nail on the head.
The presentation of the album as well as the first two tracks suggest that «Larceny» wanted to deliver a really dark work with «Into Darkness». For the third album, four songs from the previous albums were re-recorded and these songs alone clearly show the development that «Larceny» have undergone. The intro, played only on the keyboard, sounds like the start of a march into the darkness. «Detour To Hell» features direct and heavy thrash/metal riffing and in «Afterlife» you can hear the black metal influences. Most melodic death metal bands that I know work with growls and maybe a clean voice, but Oliver Gaupp bombards us with screams and shouts here, which works brilliantly. On the following title track «Into Darkness», Conny Ott also gets to prove with a beautiful solo that a keyboard also suits this genre.
Once you've gotten this far, the anthem "No Surrender" lures you into the living room moshpit. Then the tempo is slowed down a bit in "Limbus" and you get to hear a German-language song for once. «Hold The Last Light» is then kept at high speed again, with very quiet parts interspersed again and again, in which you can take a breath and set your neck vertebrae again. Unfortunately, I don't quite understand why the melody is only continued by the guitars in the last minute. «I Will Rise» comes from the first album «Larceny», here you can hear Melodic Death Metal with a good pinch of Thrash Metal again (or again). I find «Gunpowder Night» very well done, which, like the last two songs, comes from the album «My Fall». Beginning relatively cautiously with the piano, the drums give this track a really galloping rhythm. "My Fall" then poaches again at high speed and "End Of Lies" could almost be compared to "Hold The Last Light". Here, too, fine Black Metal shredding with calm parts.
In general, "Into Darkness" looks pleasantly modern and cleanly produced. The band does a good job on this album and the Baden-Württembergers dare to take a new musical direction. The very harsh vocal fraction and the melodic sound is really catchy and partly because of the many dark sound fragments it gets under your skin. Here and there the singer flashes like a lurking beast and there's just something about it. All in all, the gentlemen show us a mixture, which is simply good to listen to and doesn't just swim carelessly in the ferry waters of Melodic Death Metal. Many of their own innovations were put into the race and the extent of the melange was really successful. Since their 2010 debut, the combo has really ramped up and they've managed to stay true to their roots, despite having to shift quite a bit. Thus «Into Darkness» is not only more mature, no, the completed addition of harder parts suits the band very well. I find the addition of smaller, epic sound arrangements particularly nice as a melodic accompaniment. As is well known, one can argue about the abundance of Melodic Death Metal, but «Larceny» are able to get involved very well and offer many fresh, convincing arguments and don't sound like the umpteenth clone of any big band. worth hearing!
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Tracklist:
- Intro
- Detour To Hell
- Afterlife
- Into darkness
- No Surrender
- Limbus
- Hold The Last Light
- I will rise
- Gunpowder Night
- My case
- End of lies
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