Ghamorean is a fairly new metal band from Umea, Sweden. The band has been around for a while but they have only released one album and a couple demos so far. But things actually shines bright for this band, and it because of their style of metal which is death/black metal. Their music is pretty vicious, evil and dark but yet dynamic and varied. People will probably think of endless blast-beats, shrieking vocals and tremolo guitars with poor variation when they hear or reads death/black. But that's not the case here. Ghamorean is a band that has taken influences from the Norwegian black metal scene and mixed them with ingredients of modern death metal. The band is still in a developing stage but with time this band can grow to something really interesting.
In 2005 Plaguempire was released and it is their only album yet, but it shows the listener how serious their really are. All the members deliver a splendid mix of pale vicious black metal and heavy hammer-slamming death metal. The vocals on this album sound familiar to the At The Gates singer Tomas ’’Tompa’’ Lindberg. Like semi-harsh black metal rasps. Solid and hefty rhythm sections are accompanied by innovative and twisted leads. Blast-beats, double bass kicking and other types of drumming create great tempo dynamics and variety. Even if this is death/black you will encounter a good variety of tracks. There are fast shredding madness in tracks like ''Wretched'' and some evil and heaviness can be found in ''Project Sulphur Hate''. A very audible and well sounding album, but just like many other albums this album has a couple of flaws.
This time, good stuff beats the bad stuff. Plaguempire is a varied death/black album. Many songs have great tempo transitions, like the track ''Shackled'' for example. The intro is incredibly intense, the tempo is lowered a bit but it is compensated by some impressive shredding and catchy drumming. And finally the tempo is lowered even more, and right after that the pace is turned up once again. Many songs have this kind of structure so nothing gets awfully repetitive. One thing that will impress people would be the guitar performance. The guitarist delivers large amounts of various riffs. From technical tremolo pickings to knife-slashing shredding and pounding power chords, only the guitar solos could use some more make-up though. This type of genre is known for having a poor and/or average sound production. But everything here is very audible, especially the guitars. Nothing is over produced, the only thing that is quite inaudible is the bass, but still, the album has an excellent sound production.
The only flaws that this album has are just trivial stuff. There could've been some more vocal variety and perhaps one or two more songs on the album. The only variety you will find in the vocal performance will be a few back-up growls and sometimes the singer goes slightly deeper in his vocal register. But the thing that will really annoy people is the band's decision to
not include a lyric book with this CD. It's true; the booklet only contains individual photographs of the members, and no lyrics. But still, judging by the lyrics that are sung, the band follows the traditional path of hateful, violent and evil lyrics.
Ghamorean's debut album Plaguempire is a very interesting album that leaves the listener hungry for more. The album has a great song variety, excellent musicianship and a very good sound. Ghamorean is already at an innovative and experimental stage in this album. People who are interested of death/black fusions should look into this. People that are interested in bands that have emerged during the years of 2000 will definitely enjoy this band. Ghamorean might've been slow on release new material, but they have after all recorded a demo in 2007 so maybe we will hopefully see something in 2008.
Positives
+ Good variety of songs
+ Excellent guitar performance
+ Great sound production
Negatives
- No lyrics are included in the booklet
- A slightly stiff vocal performance
Recommended Tracks
-- Shackled
-- Parasite
-- Wretched
[b]Final rating: a temporary 4/5
