Review Summary: Tech-death's apex.
Approaching Winds of Creation today it's easy to notice how much better it is than almost any tech death album that came after. Besides the pretty mediocre
Way to Salvation, the album is pretty much rock solid and incredibly tightly arranged in a way that tech-death bands usually struggle to manage. Core to its success are its riffing style and pragmatic songwriting.
In comparison to most bands in the genre, Decapitated's style here is more reminiscent of their country-men
Vader than of other common sources of inspiration within the genre like
Suffocation or
Gorguts. An emphasis on fast, thrashy tremolo picked passages and less of a reliance on predictable chromatic figures or dissonance lends the album a very clean, sensible edge, even as it often spirals into wild technicality. Tracks like the relentlessly twisty
Blessed or the album's best track,
The First Damned manage to pack in the aggression and technical flair of all the best of the band's contemporaries, but an ability to divert back to more simplified and restrained riffing helps keep them grounded, whilst the smart choices regarding chord (or I guess key) progressions prevent those simpler moments from dragging the album down.
Decapitated's riffing style is less unique on Winds of Creation than their other albums, but still feels very distinct thanks to the fairly meaty production and interesting mix of a technical edge and swift powerchords/tremolo picking. The opening title track exemplifies this well, with its verse riff alternating a fast tremolo picking pattern with arpeggios that in many other bands would be saved for a transition or a bridge, but instead are neatly placed into the parts with enough furious speed and power that they're forcibly integrated. In general, even the viciously fast and spidery mid-point riff of The First Damned feels tonally cohesive with the simpler tremolo picked riffs of the album, thanks to neat touches of melody and well-paced run offs into powerchords or said tremolo picking. The guitar solos likewise feel well integrated, perhaps to their detriment slightly since they never feel like huge standout moments the way they might for
Necrophagist or a similar band, but their solid harmonic minor/diminished style, whilst predictable, is always well executed and enjoyable.
Of course there's a lot that could be said for this album (the quality of the musicianship for the age of the members, the degree of technicality for its time, the speed, ect), but ultimately there are hundreds of bands out their with similar qualities. Winds of Creation stands out because of how streamlined, cohesive and organized it feels whilst it pushes those envelopes. It's not the most adventurous album tonally but there isn't a single tech-death album that exceeds it in terms of a balance of songwriting quality and excellent riffage.
