Tuesday 25 March 2014

Bulletsize - The Apokalypse

BULLETSIZE - The Apokalypse (Self released CD 2011)
This is the previous to “Numb” (which I was listening to / reviewing yesterday) album of the Swedish thrash / death metallers Bulletsize and I can say that there is one significant difference between both albums. And that is a fact that while “Numb” was very well produced album, sounding just totally spotless, speaking of the modern production values, then “The Apokalypse” is in this matter much rawer and so it is more underground and messy sounding album. And with such dirty and rough sound, the whole music also seems to be more aggressive, more furious and uglier. But style wise it is still pretty much the same kind of stuff, so relatively melodic thrash / death metal, in almost typical Swedish vein, similar to… well, some quite popular bands, let’s say hehe!
I must say that I liked “Numb” a lot, but “The Apokalypse” sounds also not bad at all. Its harshness works well here and definitely the songwriting is great. Again there are some hooks, balancing between the Arch Enemy catchiness and At the Gates, it also strongly reminds me the recent works of Evocation (especially vocal wise). One can feel impressed with the guitar work, also with these memorable riffs, which Bulletsize came up with. I definitely like such songs as “The Apokalypse” (total At the Gates worship hehe! But the riffs are killer and vicious, plus there’s that melody in the middle… great!), “Out of Silence” (vicious and aggressive as fuck!), “Cassandra” (with its more melodic riffing) and “From Ashes”, which has just brilliant finishing part, with some keyboards, acoustics etc and which sounds fantastically dark and eerie. I guess there is only one moment on the whole album, which I am not so enthusiastic about and it is the song titled “Alone in the Dark”. The riffing in it gets dangerously close to such Dark Tranquillity, what is not really a problem, but the chorus has been sang with the help of the female vocalist Sol Skugga, what sounds… well, maybe not awful, but I just don’t like it too much… It’s too sweet, too soft sounding, it bangs too much to the doors of commercial metal and is not in my taste. But all in all I guess I can say that Bulletsize did not bad here; the album is good, so fans of this sort of music should definitely check it out! Mind though that I think that “Numb” is even better!
Standout tracks: “The Apokalypse”, “Out of Silence”, “From Ashes”
Final rate: 68/100

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