Total Devastation - Roadmap Of Pain
- Released: 2003
- Label: Firebox
- Rating:
After several demo releases over the past five years, the Finnish Total Devastation have released their first full-length entitled Roadmap Of Pain. It’s taken a long time, but it is definitely well worth the wait.
Roadmap Of Pain is primarily comprised of songs that appeared on the many demos the band released. Although this is somewhat of a letdown, the songs have been revamped somewhat. The production on each one is much crisper, and new “machinery”, or synthesized sounds, have been added to several songs. Previous samples have been redone and everything overall sounds much, much better.
For those of you who’ve never heard Total Devastation, they can be described as a multi-faceted death metal band. I wouldn’t classify them as simply death metal because that only makes up a small percentage of the whole. There are also elements of black metal, thrash metal, nu-metal, even industrial. Add in violins, piano, and an acoustic guitars, and you’re not far from the kitchen sink. If you’d like to get a real feel for what this band can do, listen to “Struggling From Chokehold”. The song contains just about all of the aforementioned elements, and blends them flawlessly and seamlessly. It is by far my favorite song on the disc.
The only disappointment this disc has given me is the lack of new material for those of us who have kept up with the demos. These are great songs, don’t get me wrong, but I just would have liked to see some more great stuff from these guys. As far as a debut album goes, you can’t get much better than this. Everything from “I Am God” to “Ignoring Pain” screams brutal. Grab this CD as soon as humanly possible.
Link: totaldevastation.cjb.net
Farlus | 07/31/2003