75%

Each time i deal with music which represents what is widely considered industrial rock, and at the same time being a quite heavy kind of it, I start to wonder how much of the material I'm listening to was inspired by the renowned 'The Kovenant'. A band which evolved from black metal up to their own unique style, which is still some kind of formula of industrial metal. Specifically the Animatronic lp, being so unique. When I heard Deathstarts for the first time I found it much Kovenant alike, but mostly in the matter of heaviness and agressiveness of the songs, not in the matter of samples and melody. Deathstars were simply more raw, sounding more 'dirty', not as electronic and more overdrive and distortion. The newest Deathstars album called Termination Bliss is another step in getting that unique sound defining the band's music, which, as far as I'm concerned, on this lp was a little bit too much like Kovenant and because of that could be a bit dull. There are a few genuine hits, but as for the rest I can grade them for C+. Looking at the whole lp that is definetly not enough for the record to define new paths and to be remembered eternally.
A very positive aspect of the record is the addition of samples, choirs, the vocals are less dull and the songs are more melodic.The thing I do not understand is the growling, there is no need for that. The vocals were always heavy and could be easily recognizable.Right now the vocals are often screams, which could be linked more to death/black metal and they didn't even sound like that in the Kovenant. Deathstars' music definetly is more interesting than on their first album. The problems start to arise when we look at the record in perspective of each song. I personally recognize a very good record when, after listening to it for the first time, I focus on a few songs and I hit the repeat button to listen to it again and try to understand the music deeper. I repeated a few songs after listening to Terminal Bliss, though, I must say, I found some of them to be derivative, which was exactly the same when it comes to the first album 'Synthetic Generation'. The first song - Tongues - is quite good and gives high hopes as for the rest of the record. The title of the second song - 'Blitzkrieg' - draws attention. The first thing associated to the title - World War II. I expected some Adolf Hitler speech samples, as though nazi subject is so popular in music nowadays. Instead I found the song to be a fast and aggressive, unfortunately not very melodic and because of that a not really well recognizable and memorable song. I really don't know what i should have expected - maybe some explosions? Airplane motor sounds? The song could really use something like that, cause the song, except it's name, has little on no relation to the subject. The next song, Motherzone, is better, but not amazing. We could clearly her the synthesizers, choirs, the melody rises upon the aggression. The fourth song - Cyanide - we can call a Hit Single. It has been released as a Single in Sweden. The vocalist plays a lot with the vocals and in some parts it reminds me of the Fields of the Nephilim. When we ass a nice melody, clear scheme of verse followed by chorus, nice synthesizers and we clearly got a great song. Unfortunately let alone Cyanide I only like two more songs from this album: Greatest fight On Earth and Termination Bliss. The first one is much different due to the female opera voice, but unfotunately a lot of resemblance to Cradle of Filth. The second, also calm and soft, planned well, gives a nice finish to the whole album. The rest of the songs from this album for me are simply fillings with little meaning. They're not bad, but not that characteristic either. Getting addicted to them is little possible and coming back to them has little meaning - but sure enough 'Cyanide' is a song to get addicted and come back to. Summing up the new Deathstars album is quite good, but no wonders what so ever. You could say this realease is a B+, and that's exactly how I grade it. Deathstars have a chance to really show themselves better in the future, but for now they need more uniqueness and something what will not leave any room for getting bored while listening to them.

Tracklist:

01. Tongues
02. Blitzkrieg
03. Motherzone
04. Cyanide play (flash-player)
05. Greatest Fight On Earth
06. Play God
07. Trinity Fields
08. The Last Ammunition
09. Virtue To Vice
10. Death In Vogue
11. Termination Bliss

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• M'era Luna 2015 - 2015-09-25 (Live reports)
• Deuxvolt - Union Of Opposites - 2012-04-20 (Music reviews)
• M'era Luna 2006 - 2006-08-15 (Live reports)

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