Background Information
Finland must be the only country in Scandinavia that doesn't export one certain style of metal. Norway is home for
lots of black-metal bands and Sweden has tons of death-metal bands, but Finland has a very wide selection of metal bands. You have very famous bands like the power/black-metal fusion
Children Of Bodom and the "opera-metal band"
Nightwish, but you also have other more "unknown" bands like the death/thrash band called
Deathchain and the founding fathers of funeral doom,
Thergothon. This time I found a quite special band when I was looking for something new, a thrash-metal band called
Divine Decay which was created in 1999 but they are currently inactive. Their band name might sound like a typical black or death-metal name but this is thrash-metal. This does not sound like 80's thrash though, it sounds more like retro-thrash or power-thrash to me, and if you have heard of
Invocator from Denmark you might have small idea of how this band will sound like, but ten times better.
Maximize The Misery is the second album from this band and it shows quite strong influences from the thrash legend called
Testament, and this would also give you a small idea about their sound. The music they showcase here could be best described as fast, very heavy and undeniably catchy.
Album Information
Maximize The Misery was their second album before they were "switched off", and here you have some quite heavy material actually but this album has a few critical flaws though which I'm about to talk about later. This here album was created in 2003 and it was performed by a crew of five: a total of three guitarists plus one vocalist, one bass and one drummer. I mentioned before that this album had influences from the Bay-Area thrash-metal; I think I would describe this material as some kind of old-versus-new fusion of thrash-metal or just power/thrash perhaps. This album has a total of 10 full-length songs and one short intro song which makes it to 11. I think that this album had many great songs but one of the flaws with this album is that once you have heard all the songs you will pick your favourites and then leave the rest.
Alec Hirst-Gee has a strong voice but it has unfortunately a poor range which makes the whole album material a bit uninteresting and perhaps a bit repetitive. Anyway, here you have large amounts of riffs, easy digested drumming and somewhat standard metal singing. You could even say that there are some
Metallica influences too and that is recognized because of the quite simplistic drumming. Most drum parts are just above average but this is a good thing in my opinion, as these are catchy drums and they go along well with the other instruments. Bass; yes there is a bass but it is unfortunately faded away by the massive wall of sound created by the three guitars, but you can hear some short bass fills and bass lines here and there among the song but it is nothing ground breaking from the bass.
My Positive Thoughts
The first positive thing I found about this album was that there was a lot of heavy, thick, and "juicy" riffs.
Dead In Me,
Silence Of Decades and
Without A Soul are three songs that have these kinds of riffs, and these are also my absolute favourites too. A second thing was that I thought the overall material was quite energetic, brutal and had an underlined hook to it, and once you found a favourite song you would stick with it for a while. One more thing I thought was good was the fact that this was a quite mellow and very easy digested album, as you don't have to experienced a lot of other bands before you get this album. It is heavy enough, it is catchy enough and it is not so intimidating or extreme; it's an album that would suit many metal heads, perhaps not people who like extreme metal music though.
My Negative Thoughts
I was so happy when I found this album but it had some flaws and they were not small either, and the first thing that shocked me was the huge lack of vocal work. These are quite forceful and loud vocals but it gets very boring after a while,
Weave A Web Of Vanity starts with a growl and you might think that this could be quite awesome but after that only standard vocals are heard. It's rather easy to say that these vocals will bore you with time. A second thing I thought was bad was the fact that you will only pick a few songs that you will hold on too, although I could be wrong though but I found my favourites and after that I have left the other songs alone or I'm much less interested in them. The last bad thing (which is also the second critical bad thing) was that this album lacks of guitar solos, as I think there are ten times more riffs and ten times less solos, the songs that has guitar solos are
Killing Innocence,
Maximize The Misery,
The Discomfort of Artificial Euphoria and
Black Hearted Angel (remorse), and I think personally that guitar solos or any kind of solos are very important for a metal album.
My Conclusion
Bad thrash-metal? No. Great thrash-metal? No. Good thrash-metal? Yes. I think this was a good metal album; it had the right amount of heaviness, catchiness and energy that I look for in an album I haven't heard. But, there are things here that drag down the album from the Hall Of Fame and causes it to stop about half way towards the Hall Of Shame. This album would suit many sorts of metal fans and most of all thrash-metal fans, but I guess this album has a limited fan base but it is worth a listen in my opinion.
Band Members
Alec Hirst-Gee – vocals and guitars
Paul – guitars
Timo Nyberg – guitars
Toni GrÃnros – bass
Juhuna Rantala - drums
Pros
+ Heavy and very catchy riffs
+ A very thick wall of sound from the guitars
+ It is easy to get addicted to certain songs
+ This album would suit many different metal fans
Cons
- Huge lack of variety in the vocal work
- Only
four of
eleven songs has guitar solos!
- This album has some skipable tracks
- The album might also have a bit too much rhythm than lead
Recommended Tracks
-- Silence Of Decades
-- Dead In Me
-- Without A Soul
I wish that I could give this album a higher rating but this album will
get a 3/5 (good)
, I will skip the headlines then, thanks.
