Here we have a death-metal band from Latvia! Not often you hear from other bands from other countries, but here we have a rare and interesting gem in the treasures of metal. The band is called
Neglected Fields and was formed somewhere between 1994 and 1995, the band plays technical and progressive death-metal with symphonic elements especially in their latest work). Interesting right? This band has been considered as Latvia’s finest death-metal band, but that is quite obvious because there are very few succeeded death-metal bands in Latvia. This band really has some talented members and the songs are interesting but yet very brutal, catchy and bludgeoning at the same time. This review is about their latest achievement called
Splenetic and it was released in May 2006. This album has technical and complex music; it is heavy, catchy and full of musical surprises.
Sergey (Destruction) – This man is the vocalist of this band, he uses a standard death-metal vocal style. Though this style is somewhat unusual from the bands I have heard, the vocals sounds very raspy and dark, liked a pissed off angry devil or demon of some kind. You can sometimes notice a few sudden growls and maybe some small screams, but there is this devilish snarling that dominates the songs. But these vocals are good alongside the chaotic, symphonic and bludgeoning death-metal, I will give this singer a:
3.5/5 (great)
Sergey (Filth) – Guitarist of this band, a very skilled guitarist on top of that. The overall guitar sound is great; it is thick and very powerful. There is lots of technical and complex riffing and shredding which is very heavy, catchy and brutal. The guitar solos are also quite complicated in their structures, there are very strange sounding solo, chaotic solos and sometimes more catchier solos. This is definitely one of the best performances and this guy will be given a:
5/5 (awesome)
Sergey – This is the bassist and this was one thing that really surprised me a bit. Most bands I have heard does not give the bassist much room to ‘’show off’’, but this band hasn’t. Here you have sudden bass lines that sound quite complicated as well, the bass does though follow the rhythm guitar most of the time, but when the guitar takes breaks the bass comes to fill up the empty space alongside the symphonies. This bass has a clear and metallic sound, which will result in this rating:
4.5/5 (superb)
George – This person handles all the symphonic elements, you will notice when the keyboard kicks in because you will hear the mighty organ tunes a little now and then or basically in every song more or less. These symphonic elements creates a unique and very interesting sound, it sounds like a
Dimmu Borgir and
Mirrorthrone moulded sound. This was a very clever move by the band to forge symphonic stuff with their brutal sound, the keyboards will be given a:
4.5/5 (superb)
Karlis – And here we have the drummer, perhaps the second most talented member of this album. This drummer delivers very heavy and devastating drumming; you have crushing double bass kicking and pounding beats. The drumming would be nearly as complicated as the guitars, you have quite many different patterns, most of them are very fast but there are slower and more rhythmic patters as well. The patterns create different auras towards all the songs which make them unique and not some dull half-cloned songs. This performance will be given a:
5/5 (awesome)
This album has a total of nine songs except for two tracks, one of them is the intro track called
Intro. This track is basically just 47 seconds of highly annoying electric computer noises, there are also a voice talking near the end and you can hear the symphonic parts building up; it is though an odd way to open an album but this intro is connected directly to the next track.
The Spectator shows no mercy, the songs starts off with a very bludgeoning and heavy intro. This is chaos in order, the drums are blasting beats after beats and the guitar churns out riff after riff, this is definitely one of the best tracks!
Teufelswerk enters with a symphonic intro alongside heavy chords and drum beats. The song starts to take shape and it becomes quite fast, sound effects clings a little now and then, vocals appear and the song get quite catchy. This song might not deliver complicated performances but this is not a bad song though.
Ov Snake enters with a very intensive and technical intro, it is still very heavy and forceful, symphonic keyboards follows as well. This song has probably some of the most wicked and weirdest riffs of the album, these riffs enters when the vocals appears. The sound gets though quite haunting and quite scary, but I think that this was a great song though.
The Cosm, The Vacuum, The Wave delivers complicated music, the intro is once again very intense. Vocals take over alongside some strange sound effects, the song is though quite catchy and of course heavy, this song has a quite interesting song pattern but this is not a highlight though.
The show goes on and we encounter
Splenetic / Confusion, rain is falling on to the ground and then these wacky sounding riffs comes out. These riffs feel a bit familiar to hard rock, high-pitched tunes rings out for a while and then atmospherics starts to sound. A cool bass line is clearly heard alongside the half-growling vocals, triplet shredding is being played and complicated guitar work takes over the show. This was a catchy and interesting song with lots o musical surprises, maybe a highlight.
For Those Beneath Me starts out with a quite ‘’calm’’ intro, still technical the song goes on to a more aggressive sound with some deep growls here and there. This song is quite catchy and very heavy because of the mighty double bass kicking, one of the better songs.
Triplicity is basically a short instrumental filler track, and it sounds like that this is a bass performance! The song is very calm and melodic, a true contrast song compared to the other chaotic songs. This was good but if this was longer it would’ve been great.
Khert Neter delivers a heavy and twisted shredding intro, more twisted riffs are following and the vocals appear. The song is a fast one, but it is not so catchy though. I think that people might reject this song just because of the crazy guitar work; I didn’t really like it though.
This was quite awesome I must say, perhaps not totally flawless but there were some really cool surprises in this album. Some things I really liked were the complicated guitar work, it maybe was too crazy sometimes but I liked it most of the time. It was catchy and heavy, it was something different compared to other death-metal bands. The second thing I liked was the symphonic elements; I think this would’ve been quite boring if there wasn’t a keyboard. The whole atmosphere became so powerful and interesting, you never knew what was about to come in the next song. I can’t find so many bad things about this album, they played what they are claimed to be playing and they did it with amazing skill and precision. If there should be bad things here it would’ve been the guitar work after all, I liked it but some tracks had some pretty wicked and odd riffs.
I think this is a band worth checking out; it has the standards to be a great death-metal band. I will definitely look for their other albums as well and see if they are equally as good as this. If you are a bi fan of all kinds of death-metal you should check this out, people who like complicated and technical music could give this a chance also. I can’t give this band a good similarity to other bands because this is way more different than all the death-metal I have heard yet. But I can give you some songs that I really liked and I hope you will too, the songs are
The Spectator,
Ov Snake,
Teufelswerk and
Triplicity.
This album will be given a 4.5/5 because of the catchy and technical guitar work, symphonic elements and overall sound production
