Deceptic
The Artifact

Swedish quintet Deceptic has selected a funny name for their debut album, The Artifact. I wonder if it will be seen as one if an archeologist many years from now discovers this album in the remains of a house in a dig somewhere in the mid-Sweden regions. Will this archeologist see this album as an artefact? Is it representative of the times? Well, it is compared with bands that has been part of progressing the extreme metal into its modern shape that is often performed by Swedish bands like In Flames, Meshuggah and similar. The press info states that they are akin towards these bands and still has their own style. So modern melodic extreme metal is what it is, just as the cover art suggests.

”With a ferocious but tight thrust, Deceptic will pierce through your soul and bones to make sure that you are awake, and summon those overloaded goosebumps that has been inactive for far too long. It's heavy, melodic, groovy with a lot of air at the same time. With their debut album The Artifact, they will bring you to unseen rivers and foreign lands, to grant you a memory to keep with you always!” so says the press information for this album. I guess what they said is a synonym to quite typical modern death metal from the Gothenburg area, because that’s what it is. Clinical production, sound is lovely, it sounds like a Tue Madsen product for those of you knowing his stuff. Did I say that the soundscape is great? it is. They have two vocal styles that alter, the growls and the clean where the clean sounds like they always do in this genre and the growls are not that good.

So with a bit of a weakness in the growl department I would say that these guys have some work to do there. They don’t in the sound department as that is perfect, more or less. The clean vocals are decent, not that unique though and the latter can be said about the album in general. I think they need to go down paths less travelled, a bit more perilous paths in order to really shine as bright as I believe that they can because these guys clearly have potential. The songs are strong, the album is very solid overall, too bad they take the cautious way, the path more travelled so to speak.

Oh, well it is a solid debut, a very mature debut even. I think these guys can have a bright future but only if they decide to stray from the path and dare to challenge conventions and make their own path through the modern metal landscape. This is one of the absolute best sounding modern extreme metal bands I have heard, too bad their songs aren’t quite up to the task to deliver something that would complement that sound a bit better. The growls are the biggest weakness but some of the songs should be a bit less conservative as well. A good seed for a future star, those of you who enjoy the genre will most likely enjoy this album as well, maybe you can enjoy it while you wait for them to realise their full potential? A good album is my final judgement.

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