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"Oh. It's another one of these." That's the first impression most everyone will get when initially hearing Woe of Tyrants. Their new album Threnody has become the recent darling of their label, even garnering them an opening slot on a full American tour. These death metal young'ns are being pushed to the limit, and they're style is quite appealing. No one can deny that Woe of Tyrants have top notch musicianship, flawlessly executing multifaceted and layered songs. Not always playing straight death metal, they mix it up, incorporating influences from black and thrash, even with the occasional gothic-styled clean vocal melody. Despite the variegation, Woe of Tyrants' overproduction, overmixed drumming, and overbearing slickness don't help them out at all. Instead, they lump them into a field of overachieving extreme metallers with undeniable technical prowess but little songwriting ability.

Despite these flaws, passing off Woe of Tyrants would be a mistake. They have a plethora of excellent moments on the album. Some of the clean vocal passages seep through ears with their morose elegance, while some of the riffs wind up and down, pummeling themselves into your eardrums. But their main problem is that they can't construct these moments into cohesive and compelling songs. They're jumping all over the place instead. Riffs build with no payoff, and solos permeate the music with little or no place or introduction. The only constant throughout the album is the nonstop double bass and light speed drumming, which in itself isn't that effective, just overpowering.

Woe of Tyrants aren't bad at all, they just try to do too much. This is in essence, a very pretentious album. There's promise here, but it never delivers.