Review Summary: No big deal, just another overlooked old-school death metal album that will eat your entire family for breakfast.
It can be argued that old-school death metal is the greatest subgenre in all of metal. While there are plenty of classics in genres such as black metal and thrash, it seems like OSDM has many more. There's albums like
None So Vile,
Effigy of the Forgotten,
Mental Funeral,
Close to a World Below, the entire Death discography....I could go on forever. Unfortunately, with so many classics in the genre, it always seems that some of them get left unmentioned to a lot of people.
Serenadium by Iniquity is one of those albums.
What you get on this album is an onslaught of always brutal, always technical, sometimes doomy old-school death metal. To be honest, this album kind of sounds like the bastard child of Demilich and Autopsy and/or Incantation. They bring the technicality that you would find on an album like
Nespithe and mix it with the dirtiness and grime you would find on an album like
Onward to Golgotha. Just take the first track, Tranquil Seizure, for example. At first, you would think you're getting yourself into a doom album with the doom-like power chords, but after about 30 seconds, they put the pedal to the floor and you find yourself right in the middle of a ***storm of Immolation inspired pinch harmonics, insane solos, and blast beating. The drumming is quite a treat on this album as well. It basically sounds like the band told Jesper (the drummer, obviously) to do whatever the hell he wanted to do behind the kit and they would pick up the pieces around him. It's really that ferocious. Vocally, the album really isn't too much different than what you would hear from the death metal scene at this time. Low pitched, gargling growls are the only style used here. If I had to compare the vocals to someone though, I'd probably choose Frank from Suffocation because of the fact that they're some of the most guttural vocals you'll hear, but you can still pretty much understand what he's saying. Even the bass is a surprise on this album, giving off a Gorguts feeling with it's technicality. Just listen to the entire title track, the bass pretty much dominates that song.
Sadly, it doesn't seem like too many death metal fans talk about this album, even though Iniquity pretty much takes all the best parts of the greatest bands in the genre and blends it all into one album. If you don't want to hear a band that mixes elements of bands like Autopsy, Demilich, Incantation, Gorguts, etc. all into one album, then I feel truly sorry for you because you're definitely missing out.
Serenadium is an album that definitely should be mentioned with the greats in the death metal genre.
