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Feared: Furor incarnatus
13/05/13 || Ironpants
Blinded by “Feared”?
If you are a devotee of guitar voyeurism, fretboard masturbation and finger-picking extravaganza you probably already know who Ola Englund is? If not, Ola is a handsome Swede and one of the guitarists in Six Feet Under, replacing Rob Arnold that retired quickly after “Undead” was released for some reason we don’t care about, and got the fuck out faster than you can say “Hammer smashed face”. The rumor says, that Chris Barnes himself then called Ola Englund, and recruited him to SFU solely by what he had seen on Ola’s Youtube Channel. That channel has 30 billion viewers each hour, where Ola is showing of his skills, equipment and techniques for playing better than all guitar players in the universe… and beyond.
I admit, everything above is from what I have Googled in about five minutes before writing it. I don’t give a fuck about guitars and shit, I’m a drummer ffs, and we hate guitar players! They are getting all the chicks, all the spotlights and all the interviews. There is actually another reason I came across this album, drummer boy Kevin Talley is doing the skin-bashing on this one, currently the drummer for Six Feet Under (coincidence?), but has been doing stuff for various outfits through history, Dying Fetus, Misery Index, Chimaira, Daath, session drumming for this and that. I wouldn’t say that he is one of my top favorite drummer, but he’s done some respectable work through the years, and for that, he’s in my drum fetish attention span.
Enough with the name dropping and ass-kissing, I’m beginning to sound as some A&R guy from a record label and that’s not how we roll at GD. What do we have in front of us here then? It’s sort of a solo album, as Ola is playing the strings (guitar/bass) and also mixing the stuff. The other part of the band is Mario Ramos on vocals and together they are “Feared”, Talley is enlisted as session drummer and Per Nilsson (Scar Symmetry) is doing some soloing. The music presented is a mixture of groovy death/thrash with a lot of hints towards Meshuggah/Fear Factory and a lot of Dimebag influenced guitar caress. It´s modern and up to date sound wise and I really like the sound on this album.
I exaggerated a little in the intro text regarding the guitar masturbation, Ola is actually not that eager to put himself in the spotlight, and his playing style is putting a lot of emphasis on bringing the song forward. Of course, there is some splendid soloing on the album, but they are never taking over. Instead we get 12 songs that are driven by fat, groovy riffing. Songs like “Psycho logic” brings some Pantera infested melodies that are kinda sweet, and songs like “Neverlasting” brings out some “djenting”, which is a ridiculous term, but hey, Ola does it correct and professionally avoid the trap that youngster step in when they “chuggah” away in a static way, he does it with a groove that lesser talented can’t match.
The singer, Mario, belch away in a rather low growling, but still articulates good enough to let you hear all the lyrics really well. In “Satan” he also serves up some clean singing, and does it OK. Session dude, Kevin Talley performs really good, and here and there he release his faster playing style, but mostly he keeps it in the pocket, with a laid back and clean playing style.
This is a pretty good album, but I can’t let the feeling go that it is something missing here? The first times I really liked it, and happily played air-drums to it and headbanging with my imaginary hair. But, it is kind of… sterile and static. I think it should have earned from getting a little bit more gritty and battle worn. It’s almost too digital in a way. One can not deny the fact that Ola is a really good songwriter though, and a super guitar player and we will surely get some more from him in future “Feared” releases, if he’s not allowed to bring in some ideas into SFU?
- Information
- Released: 2013
- Label: Self-released
- Website: http://fearedband.com
- Band
- Mario Ramos: vocals
- Ola Englund: guitars, bass
- Kevin Talley: drums
- Tracklist
- 01. Live in you
- 02. Breathing failure
- 03. Psycho logic
- 04. Vintersol
- 05. Possessed
- 06. Satan
- 07. Warbound
- 08. Devil in white
- 09. Neverlasting
- 10. Impending doom
- 11. Forever old
- 12. End
