Review Summary: Production values away up, songwriting skills away down.
The "sophomore slump" is a well known sindrome of the music world. Typically, a band's debut contains songs said band has worked on for the lenght of their career thus far, and which they have perfected to exhaustion. The second album, on the other hand, is always set against timing constraints and touring schedules, as bands strive to release something new in time to avoid losing relevance. This ploy often results in (sometimes severely) sub-par albums, either lacking in creativity, cohesion, or both.
But apart from the "sophomore slump", there is another phenomenon bands are subject to once they become mildly well-know. This yet unnamed tendency dictates that whenever a band has access to better recording resources, the songwriting takes a tumble. This is not always true - much like the "sophomore slump" doesn't always occur - but is often noticeable, particularly in more "experiment"-driven albums.
On their second demos, 2nd Suicide are suffering from both the "sophomore slump" and the "resource syndrome". In fact, while the production on
Last Of Kin is infinitely superior to that of
An Epitaph For The Proud - which wasn't too shabby itself - the songs are much less interesting, and make 2nd Suicide come across as a perfectly banal band, rather than the promising prodigies the debut seemed to indicate.
Now, first of all, credit where it's due: the production is
awesome. The bass in particular sounds absolutely monstrous in the intros, and the extra layer of almost synthesized guitars on the title track fits in well with the band's extreme, yet also melodic sound. The problem, then, lies in the songs themselves, which suffer as much from lack of inspiration as from an unnecessary stylistic change.
In fact, on this album, 2nd Suicide seem to be going for a more blackish, and distincly less Finnish, vibe; while the title track still sounds like an offshoot of Kalmah, the remaining two are more akin to something like a frill-less Dimmu Borgir or a less heavy Thorns. But while on
Epitaph they were an admittedly derivative, but still really good copy of Kalmah, on this album they sound like any number of the uninteresting, dime-a-dozen black/death metal bands which populate the underground. Other than the production and the huge bass sound, there is very little to get excited about on either
Last Of Kin or
The Drowning Sun. And while
Words gives us the most layered, progressive song in the group's career, it is precious little to save an otherwise unengaging album. Suffice it to say that
Last Of Kin's running time is exactly the same as its predecessor's - with the songs going from a three and a half-minute average to a heftier four and a half - yet it drags on in a way its predecessor never did.
In the end, then,
Last Of Kin is a failed follow-up to the promising
An Epitaph For The Proud, and nearly makes the listener lose interest in 2nd Suicide. Luckily, the group knew to do the right thing, and their next release - and last so far - would consist of two re-recordings from the first demo. Let's hope they can recover from this stumble - and the endless formation changes - and reveal the potential they do have next time around.
Recommended Tracks
Words
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