I love a good bass intro. This one has brass balls. And that's not even accounting for that crazy guitar riff afterwards. "Self Adulation" deservedly does just that, all while kicking like the wild horse on the cover. This is Islay. This is righteous German death metal.
We got hooks. We got solos. We got all the best deals on death growls, shrieks, and howls. Rampant drums? Got those too. Everything must go! The Angel's Share is truly a fire sale of awesome. Tracks like "World Wide Suicide" (not a Pearl Jam cover) are instant classics. That clean singing in the chorus is some catchy s?%t. Like Dark Tranquillity meets epic anime.
I took some German for two years in college...and listened to a s#@t ton of Rammstein. This is not in German, but I can safetly say that du fühlst die en "dein herz." The guitar wails and layered screams gave me a few chills, quite frankly. And the harmonized melodeath solos are almost cheating with my heartstrings so easily pulled by Gothenburg nostalgia. Same goes for the symphonic additions to Blind Messiah. The feels.
But tracks like "Charger" show another side, one that is filled with Toolish groove and even a few nods to industrial metal. And by the time the title track enacts its startling conclusion, we have powered through early Borgir frantic piano lines, folky balckened guitar riffs, and an overall progressive feeling format.
If you love you some melodeath that isn't processed and built on an assembly line, you need The Angel's Share in your life. It's 7 Euro on bandcamp well spent. Hop to it. Schnell!