Who could've known that melodic death metal would be one of the greatest and most successful sub-genres in the metal scene? This is simply put a recipe for success. You can basically use all sorts of lyrical concepts, the music can almost be endlessly brutal but if it is combined with simple melodies and clean vocals even people outside the metal genre can enjoy it. Your parents became most likely upset and angry when they caught you listening to
Obituary and
Dismember but when they entered your room while you were playing
In Flames or
Edge Of Sanity they didn't even care. But just like any music genre, melodic death metal would later become overcrowded and many bands became incredibly generic and bland while some artists and bands really hit it big.
Ablaze My Sorrow was one of many Swedish melodic death metal that never reached the big scene. They simply didn't had ''it'' that could've made them famous. The band broke up after three full-length albums due to tensions and disagreements between the band members.
Ablaze My Sorrow had a sound which was quite comparable to early
At The Gates. And that was simple angry, hateful and just purely pissed-off melodic death metal.
Hypocrisy and lies
There is no ****ing paradise
Looking for the love of my life
It isn't in your ****ing Paradies
The band broke up once but they decided to re-unite and they released
Anger, Hate and Fury, their last album before the broke up forever.
Anger, Hate and Fury is a mixed bag of goodies. This album is not even comparable to their debut album. Their debut album was incredible bland, poorly produced and outright boring. But this album is pretty much the total opposite. The sound production is immensely improved, the track variety is better and the vocals sound a lot more mature and stronger. The whole album sounds mature and fresh compared to their previous work. Even if this album could be considered as their best release it still has a couple of mentionable flaws.
I'm rather dead forever
Than living without my needs
The good things are that the album sounds like a real melodic death metal album to begin with. You have the classic song structure where you can find a lot of aggressive riffing, frenzy drumming and screaming but suddenly during the choruses the tempos usually slows down and the guitars starts to deliver smooth and catchy melodic leads, and the whole atmosphere completely changes. Take these tracks for example. ''Slit Wide Open'' starts out in a very aggressive and in-your-face kind of way but during the chorus the music becomes more driving and pulsing and the guitars plays some really nice sound tremolo-picked melodies. The second thing is that the tracks and lyrics are also very diverse and interesting. ''Where The Strong Live Forever'' is a very calm but also quite folky type of song. ''Paradies'' is basically made of a bunch of hammering power-chords and ''Shrouded Are The Pleasures Of Flesh'' is a standard intensive chilly tremolo-picked pressure-release. And finally the sound production. Everything sounds really good except for the bass. The vocals are loud, the drumming has a perfect sound and the guitars have a very crunchy and sharp sound.
Valkyries ride down to me
Einherjer is what I'll be
I ride with them to the golden halls
Deep within Asgaards walls
Anger, Hate and Fury definitely lives up the title but there are a couple of things that are lacking in this album. There is a present frustration and anger in the music but there is not so much energy and or passion mixed in. This can be clearly heard in some of the tracks, even if ''Paradies'' for example has a very good thrust in it you would've wished that the band could've used a bit more creativity and thrown in some more single note picking instead of just power-chords for example. You get the feeling that the band was playing safe and that they didn't wanted to take and chances, musically that is. It doesn't matter now though, this is the best album the band has released and it would've been interesting to follow this band if they decided to do that.
Anger, Hate and Fury is a very good melodic death metal. Fans of early
In Flames and most of all
At The Gates should acquire this album.
Recommended Tracks
-- Where The Strong Live Forever
-- Slit Wide Open
-- Shrouded Are The Pleasures Of The Flesh
-- Paradies
