Review Summary: A varied and interesting album with a lot of melodic and powerful moments.
"Fear My Thoughts have always been about diversity, about combining all of our unique musical tastes. We think this is the first time we have succeeded in this self-applied mission: to worship the old heroes and to be conscious about the possibilities and advantages of modern technologies. If you're into blast beats and Deep Purple Hammond organs, you'll probably like what we're doing! Expect some more melody, some experimentation, but also some old-school thrash vibes." - Guitarist Patrick Hagmann
There had already been a lot of argument about what genre Fear my Thoughts actually play, a lot of people say that they play metalcore, while others (me included) believed them to play melodic death metal. Does Vulcanus (hehe, anus) make them easier to categorise? Well, no, they've certainly lost a lot of the metalcore influence but the band have started playing some very thrashy riffs and some of the chorus' actually remind me of power metal! This is a very varied album.
Fear my Thoughts:
Vocals - Mathias Von Ockl
Guitars & backing vocals - Markus Ruf
Guitars & backing vocals - Patrick Hagmann
Bass - Batosz Wojciechowski
Drums - Norman Lonhard
There are also several guests appearing on the album.
When I got this album, I didn't know what to expect really, I'd heard a lot of good reviews for it but the one song I did hear was good, but not brilliant. I bought it anyway, and then as the first song came blasting through the speakers, I knew I wouldn't regret it. The opening track is pure melodic death goodness, with an awesome guitar riff and piercing vocals. They don't start slowly, that’s for sure!
The production is stellar throughout the album, you can hear every instrument clearly and even the bass is audible, which is a nice change from most metal albums out now. The guitars are this albums strong point, there are many great riffs and solos in Vulcanus, there are melodic death harmonised leads, thrashy head banging riffs and just some good old heavy metal shredding throughout the album, you get treated to different styles in nearly every song. Mathias Von Ockl (how the hell do you say that?) does the vocals very well, he strays away from the deep growling used by death metal bands and sings through the album with his throaty scream, sometimes changing to his marvellous clean voice which a power metal band would be proud of. The drummer keeps the album varied, he manages to keep a slower beat in some songs while furiously assaulting other parts of the album, we even get treated to some blast beats. The bass is done very well on this album and is actually the highlight of some songs, e.g. 'Stamp of Credence'. There are many different influences that show in this album, 'Culture of Fear' even has some Opeth like acoustic passages and 'Survival Scars' is very heavily influenced by Swedish legends At the Gates.
The song writing on this album is very mature, with brutal yet balanced tracks that sound like a modern version of Swedish Death Metal. This is very dense and fast, corrosive by times with a rather technical composition. There are furious songs that keep a fast pace and also slower more powerful songs that can pound you into submission and this variation helps to keep the listener interested, most of the songs are memorable and you find yourself wanting to press play again to let it all sink in. The title track is worthy of a special mention here, it's one of the greatest instrumentals I've heard, it follows the very quick and 'At The Gates' influenced 'Survival Scars' and it just slows down the album for the audience to have a breather. The music is very haunting with a repeated riff and spooky keyboards, it eventually speeds up and gets even more epic towards the end, before finishing in a 70's style solo. Its one of my favourite instrumentals and deserves a mention here. Unfortunately, after this and 'Soul Consumer' the band seems to run out of steam and there is a dip in quality from the first half of the album which is excellent throughout.
After finally getting themselves on to a big record label, Fear my Thoughts has shown why. With Vulcanus they have managed to push away any genre boundary and find a sound of their own. Things can only get better from here.
