This Ending - Inside The Machine

This Ending is the reincarnation of a somewhat old school band called A Canorous Quintet. Old school for me at least. They were one of the first swedish melodic death metal bands I heard when I was just getting into this stuff in 97ish, back when swedish melodic death still had balls. Their 1998 release The Only Pure Hate is still one of my favorite albums. The singer also did the vocals for the absolutely incredible side project, October Tide, with Jonas Renske of Katatonia. Bless Pandora radio for re-introducing me to these guys cause I doubt I would have discovered them on my own.

Musically, this is very much in line with what The Only Pure Hate was back in 1998. The production is better of course, but the riffs, drums, and overall sound has the same feel as ACQ. In fact, its a very similar sound to much of the mid to late 90s swedish metal that has recently fallen off the radar. Maybe that's why I'm enjoying it so much. It reminds me of why I fell in love with this style of music 10 years ago.

Unfortunately if you clicked on the above link to their homepage you'll notice that their image has definitely changed. They look like a shitty Engel-like band. Oh well, at least they still sound good.

8/10

This makes me want to look into whatever happened to another one of my favorite melodic death bands, Autumn Leaves, whose album As Night Conquers Day was also one of my first, and still a favorite, melodic metal album. Well holy crap, a guitarist from Autumn Leaves is now doing The Arcane Order... Going to have to check them out.