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Melisend are a Death Metal band from the Netherlands who are taking a bit of a different approach and trying to do something new with their music. A lot of times this kind of thing goes too far and becomes lame, but Melisend haven't gone overboard.

What we have here is some good midpaced Scandinavian styled Death Metal with some non-Gothenburger melody and a definite Doom sensibility, resulting in some nice slow grooves. Overall Melisend are very enjoyable, with a good guitar crunch and some very cool riffs. They do lapse into some acoustic bits that sound like Opeth, so that's not good there. But they only do that here and there. Vocals are the expected growl, which does just fine. There are some spoken-word bits, and I don't like those as well, but again, those are far between. Most of this disc is solid doomy Death Metal with a good ear for melody and hook. Even a song with a title like "Dreary Plodding" – which sounds like a parody – is a good tune with a heavy groove that will get your head banging.

So this is good, and Melisend certainly show promise for the future. I see no reason why this band should not have a deal and get to release a proper album sometime soon. Just a little experimentation has made this band stand out from the pack, and as long as they don't go overboard, they will evolve a distinct sound of their own.