Formed by Tanner Anderson of Obsequiae alongside members of Inexorum, Majesties pays tribute to the Gothenburg bands that helped develop melodic death metal throughout the 90s. One look at the cover art for their debut Vast Reaches Unclaimed and the first few notes of the album will teleport you right back to that time period, as the cover art is reminiscent of In Flames The Jester Race while the music pulls from across the Swedish landscape. But these musicians have also brought some of Obsequiae’s riff structures along with them for the ride, making this a debut that feels nostalgic while also pushing towards its own take on the genre.
It was clear from the preview songs that were released prior to Vast Reaches Unclaimed that Majesties were tapping into what made so many of the Gothenburg bands memorable a few decades back, and the fact that they’re able to do this so consistently across ten songs without the sound becoming stale is impressive. At the core of the group’s writing is the same faster tempos and dual guitar work that has some weight behind it but lets the melodies soar into the stratosphere, but it seems that even if members of Obsequiae form a new band they can’t not sound like Obsequiae. Some of the fuller melodies have the same sense of beauty and mystique as Obsequiae but run through a death metal filter rather than a black metal one. You’ll notice this especially on the cleaner passages on songs like “Across the Neverwhen” which channels some similar atmosphere, but Majesties still manages to head in a different enough direction to make their ideas distinguishable. And even though there are so many riffs crammed into this album that it might take a few listens to focus on different ones, there’s a consistent hook to the writing that has many songs still jump out during the first time through. In Flames and At the Gates are clear points of reference, but I even hear a little bit of bands like Mithras during some of the spacey solos where the guitars really let loose. As you might expect, with this type of focus on a specific period and region of melodic death metal some songs do fall into familiar patterns, but the sheer quality of what Majesties has to offer here elevates their material above so many others.
Tanner handles all of the vocals throughout Vast Reaches Unclaimed, so if you’ve spent time with Obsequiae there are elements of his performance that will be familiar. He still goes for a raspier scream/shriek, but for Majesties he’s adapted the pitch so it comes through sounding a bit closer to Tomas Lindberg’s performance on At the Gates’ albums. There’s some echo and other variations thrown in, but for the most part the vocals blaze a straightforward path that feel abrasive and destructive. One of the biggest differences comes courtesy of the production values, as where Obsequiae has a tendency to bury their vocals here they are one of the more prominent elements on the album. Some may find the performance to be a bit one dimensional over time, but it suits the sound Majesties is going for.
With roots going back as far as 2016, it’s clear that Majesties has spent a lot of time fine tuning their approach to melodic death metal and they’re already onto something special with their debut. This album is filled with riff after riff that will keep listeners engaged from beginning to end, and it manages to capture the feeling of the classics while still pushing forward onto its own path. I do think that they’ve left themselves room to expand upon this foundation and take it even further, but this is still a masterful debut that I’ll continue to come back to for years to come. Vast Reaches Unclaimed is available from 20 Buck Spin.
-Review by Chris Dahlberg