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Soils Of Fate: Crime syndicate

24/08/10 || Habakuk

I don’t know who sets the agenda at the annual Lyricists Of Brutal Death Meeting (LOBDEM), but for some reason, at one point around 2000-something, “crime” was brought forward as the next big thing. Maybe they thought Hip Hop was getting all the fame that Suffocation should have gotten, who knows. Anyways, this resulted in a couple of spin-off bands with said lyrical concept that were based on established acts like Suffocation, Dying Fetus, Misery Index and so forth. Criminal Element is one of them, Soils of Fate from Sweden is another.

Being from Sweden, one thing the band lacked was street cred. So, they hired no-one else but Kevin Talley, drummer for acts like Misery Index, Dying Fetus, Hate Eternal and so forth, who was flown across the Atlantic to make this album sound even more American than it already does. Yes, despite “Henke” and “Mange” sport Swedish nicknames of the finest sort, they play US Slam Death par excellence, now backed up by skilled grooves that actually are genuinely American and a decent production job. You can’t hear the bass, but the rest sounds pretty damn good.

One thing the guys at LOBDEM didn’t have in mind when picking the next hip lyrical topic, though, was the fashion in which Henke delivers the vocals. This guy is totally incomprehensible. He sports guttural and very, very deep growls, but they lack personality, variety, edge and even evulness, since at times it doesn’t just stay bland but borders on the ridiculous.

Rururuurrrrrrrrrrruuuuuu
RruuuuruuuuurrurrROOOWR

- the only crime I can make out here is illegal disposal of garbage.
This, however, is the only letdown of this album. And when not making a complete dick of himself, the vocalist with his one-dimensional approach makes it easy to focus on the music and enjoy some quality slammage. In addition, some Devourment dude steps in for the rescue for the duration of two songs and provides at least some variety. So, all is not lost in that department. Speaking of quality slammage, what exactly are we dealing with here? We’re talking monstrous, energetic grooves, you know, the kind of stuff that makes you wanna fuck shit up big-time, fetus killing style. Examples include the tracks “Vs.”, “Blood Money” or the ending part of “Insider”. Hell, even the blast beat intro to “Flowing under skin 2.0” has a decent groove, although it is, after all, a blast beat intro. Quality shit on the guitars y’all. And with most of the song titles now mentioned already, let me just get it out of the way: my personal favorite among the song titles is obviously “Killaz beware”.

All in all, the album is clearly situated in its brutal death niche, but the blasting doesn’t go overboard, instead complementing the big picture nicely – bonus question: What other band knew all too well how to do this? Exactly, Suffocation.
And consequently, this album’s sound owes a lot to Suffo’s “Despise the sun” EP. Just to be safe, the band serves listeners a decent but not great cover of “Devoid of Truth” with the last track. Oh well, why not. At least it’s a track you remember, as the nature of the material makes it prone to blurring together after a bit.

So, to wrap this up: Everyone craving for another Suffocation fix should give this a go, as it is emulating their sound quite well, instrumentally speaking at least. If you don’t let the one-dimensional vocals scare you off, you might actually enjoy this quite a bit. Whack vocal style haterz beware though.

Information
Released: 2003
Label:
Website: Soils Of Fate MySpace
Band
Henrik “Henke” Crantz: vocals, bass
Magnus “Mange” Lindvall: guitars
Kevin Talley: drums

Tracklist
01. Killaz beware
02. Omerta (Men of honor/code of silence)
03. Blood money
04. Vs.
05. Crack
06. Murder Inc.
07. Flowing under skin 2.0
08. Insider
09. Devoid of truth

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