With so many newer bands playing technical death metal these days, it’s refreshing to find a band that infuses early 90’s styled song craft to their approach.  Metal Blade has just released Dying Vine, the debut album from Pennsylvania’s Aletheian and the young band definitely has done their influences justice.  All the usual ingredients that you would expect from a tech-death album are present.  The intricate rhythm patterns, hyper sped guitar lines and complex song arrangements are abundant throughout the length of the album.  The vocal lines float in and out of the chaotic tracks with a commanding presence that works wonders for the flow of the material.  Front man Joel Thorpe’s style ranges from screechy grunts to lower, more traditional death metal schooled vocal jabs.

While the songs certainly have a modern stylistic footing, some of the sections had a certain feel to them that looked backwards for inspiration.  There were aspects of the band that reminded me of older greats like Pestilence (Spheres era) and Atheist.  The combo even goes as far as to cover the mighty Cynic’s “How Could I” from their essential, Focus album.  Now when you dare take on a song of this caliber, you better know what you are doing!  Luckily for Aletheian, they not only live up to the lofty challenge, they also actually manage to inject their unique stamp on the1993 gem.  Dying Vine isn’t the kind of album you crank in your car on the way to the Slayer show but for those of you who love highly skilled death metal with plenty of structural twists and turns, I couldn’t recommend it enough. 

Rating: 8/10
Label: Metal Blade Records
Website: www.aletheian.com

 By Carlos Ramirez

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 13th, 2008 at 11:54 pm. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Defleshuary wrote:

One of the best bands to come out of PA!

May 14th, 2008 at 1:13 am

Kurt wrote:

as defleshuary said, which they themselves are a great band

by far one of the best bands out of PA ever
highly tallented and rythmatic
i’ve been keeping a close track on these guys for a while and they havent ceased to amaze me.

August 1st, 2008 at 2:52 pm

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