Monoscream
Aeon

Aeon the second album by Swedish melodeath band Monoscream has been a little bit overlooked by me when trying to get through the ever-increasing pile of albums to review so a fair bit of time has passed since it was released. A fair bit of time has also passed since we last wrote about Monoscream, their debut album was released in 2011 and the band was formed in 2007. So, I guess you could claim that they haven’t been the most diligent when it comes to releasing albums, but the ones they have released have been worthwhile and that is probably better than just throwing out album after album every other year. This is one of the best extreme metal albums released last year, I didn’t have it on my list but it would have been close.

Quite complex and heavy melodic death metal with variation, depth and dynamics, is how I would describe Aeon if it was to be done in one short sentence. The new album has a very appealing sound, excellent production could be used, and great vocals from new vocalist Nico. It is said in the press material that they are looking for world domination, and while it is nothing wrong with ambitions it may not be enough to dominate the world of music but perhaps the extreme metal world – if promoted correctly. They show some strong imagination through the album that sounds quite fresh without really breaking new musical ground, and they keep it short and to the point with an album that is constantly striving forwards and not standing still in one place like many of the genre competitors.

Aeon is a very strong album with appealing tracks through the entire playing time, I cannot really find anything to be negative about as they do everything really well and have no weaker tracks. This is how melodic death metal should be done, groovy, energetic, with strong dynamics, great songs, appealing growling and a fresh sound – very few succeed when it comes to that part and most albums in this genre are quite bland so this will stand out. It is certainly an album to check out, if you like the genre it would be quite mad to miss out on an album as great as this one.

It is an album to return to many times over, quite memorable and captivating and while their 2011 release was rather great I think this one is even better. I think Monoscream could be on that path to world domination, they just have to keep evolving like they have done, hopefully we don’t have to wait as long for the next album and hopefully that one is even better. Therefore, the only conclusion is that you should not miss this album, it is great!

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