NEAERA – Ours Is The Storm
- Posted on 27-02-2013
To find a metal band such as Neaera on their sixth full length studio album with "Ours Is the Storm" in their 10 year history without a single lineup change is a rarity indeed. Commitment to the cause should pay dividends, as this German melodic death metal quintet with hardcore inflections set their sights squarely on punishing rhythms, a multi-faceted growling/ scream vocal presence and this juggernaut of riffing and arrangements that moves you.
The stair step mid-level riffs that move into speedy blackened death trilling for "Ascend to Chaos" instantly grab me by the throat- then the fierce dual sandpaper black metal screams and death growls from deep caverns out of Benjamin Hilleke should scare all non-underground fans. When the rhythm section of drummer Sebastian Heldt and bassist Benjamin Donath provide the jackhammer low end thump necessary to keep songs like "Walk With Fire" and the title cut roaring with At The Gates/ The Crown intensity, you know that if the measure requires a slower breakdown its performed with class and proper respect. Mandatory head banging should take place upon the opening doom-dirge riff for "Black Tomb", while "Back to the Soul" contains the Tobias Buck/ Stefan Keller upper melodic guitar lines and killer rhythm riffs that made the early Swedish scene with Sacrilege and Dark Tranquility vital and special.
Normally the crossing of such diverse aspects of hardcore, death metal, and slightly blackened elements would strike fear in the hearts of many- because you instantly think a lowest common denominator of commerciality is in place. Neaera obliterate those stereotypes- "Ours Is the Storm" a testament to locking into the heart of metal integrity, and as such this is another fine product that wins the hearts of many cross sections of the genre.