Illdisposed
Grey Sky Over Black Town

These Illdisposed Danish death metallers are not only impressively brutal; they have amassed an impressive number of albums and a career as impressive as 25 years. This is their fourteenth album called Grey Skies Over Black Town, a funny name I would say and the cover art is quite interesting as well. I wonder if the girl was a criminal in the old Wild West or just very bored with life, the question might be answered on the album. An album I was looking forward to hearing, as I have liked this band’s previous efforts.

And this one isn’t different stylistically, same kind of subwooferish vocals as before. It is brutal and very powerful yet quite melodic and almost catchy, they have a relatively unique approach and remain one of the most interesting bands in their genre stylistically. The production is again excellent, like last time around, but who suspected otherwise considering that The Batcave was used for recording. I would describe this as a very solid production, their routine and knowledge of what they are doing shows here.

It is a relatively varied album on ten tracks and a little over 40 minutes of music, unless you get the limited digipak that has three additional bonus tracks and plays for almost an hour. Very solid 40 minutes, or hour, it is and I am sure the fans of this band will enjoy this a fair bit. But I don’t think this is one of their absolute top offering but it is a very solid effort and has no real flaws, other than perhaps just being one more of their albums – although that is of course a flaw that is quite debatable.

I don’t think this album has any of those hit songs that we can hear in earlier albums, all the songs are solid and quite entertaining although not at the real top of what they can do. The fact is that this album feels a little bit stale and a little bit like they give us what they expect us to find agreeable, I like it but the previous album was a lot better and the albums before had a lot more that really caught my ear. A solid effort showing of their great experience, maybe they are just doing it all on routine.

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