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Melodic Death Metal. That automatically triggers the thought "Gothenburg" in my mind. The sound that was essentially seen as revolutionary a few years ago now seems so generic. Well, for once here's a melodic Death Metal band that does not come from Sweden, and therefore do not sound too much like every In Flames clone out there - with one possible exception, the fourth song, "In The Absence of Light", could very well have been included on In Flames' Clayman album, very catchy and somewhat "poppish". The sound on that particular song is amazingly "In Flamesque". Anyway, Epoch of Unlight is a U.S. band and the recording took place in Louisiania.

The vocals are quite similar to In Flames, except that overall they are a bit more articulated and therefore more tolerable, if not simply more fitting to the music. While the musical feeling gives into melodic death, the guitar work on this album is varied enough to keep me interested, with some interesting riffs here and there. I think the album suffers a bit production-wise though, sometimes the mix is a little too blended and it's difficult to separate each instruments, and on "In The Absence Of Light" the drums seem to be losing their edge for a few seconds in a few places in the song - this really sounds like an error to my ears. Except for those minor details, the sound is pretty good overall.

I was getting tired of the Gothenburg sound and approached this with some apprehension. But I was agreably surprised. Epoch of Unlight have a little something of themselves to offer to the genre and frankly, the genre badly needed this! Overall this is a pretty good album and it's refreshing to hear some non-generic melodic death. If you're into this type of music and for a change want something from elsewhere than Gothenburg, I recommend you check those guys out. Not bad at all.