LAHMIA – Forget Every Sunrise

Lahmia was formed in 2001 in the city of Rome, Italy. Their first step in the Metal world was by playing a mix of Thrash and Gothic metal. In 2005 they started to turn away from the Gothic Metal part to Melodic Death Metal with the combination of Melodic elements of Black Metal. In that year they released their first EP, Lahmia. Two years later the band released its second EP which goes by the name, An Eternal Memory and this year, continuing with the same Melodic line comes their newest and third release, Forget Every Sunrise.

Generally, Forget Every Sunrise is mostly influenced by several bands and sub genres, that all create a very interesting combination. Bands like: the early Swedish Dark Tranquility, Greek Rotting Christ, Italian Death / Gothic act Novembre and the late Finnish Metallers Sentenced.

The production of this release was produced in Temple Of Noise studio with very good quality. Most of the songs have that touch of early Gothenburg Melodic Death Metal style, the music is very melodic with heavy riffs and some heart cracking solos. In addition this album gives the listener a very unique atmospheric mood that can make some of the songs pretty addictive which are pretty similar to their Italian comrades Novembre.

The vocalist, Francesco Amerise, presents a cold icy feeling with clean vocals along with the combination of high growls and screams on tracks like: “Glass Eyed Child”, “The Last Dance” and “Game Of Sacrifice”. The guy’s growls mostly resemble Mikael Stanne of Dark Tranquility and Sakis Tolis of Rotting Christ .The lead guitarist, Flavio Gianello, shows off very captivating leads and solos that adds the Melodic sense to the album. The rhythm guitar work and drumming gives a really good kick in the teeth with heavy and fast riffs and unexpected changes of pace.

All the tracks in Forget Every Sunrise are, professionally, well performed and show the attitude of the first wave of Melodic Death Metal. But there are memorable ones that are truly a work of art. The opener, “Nightfall”, is a true “Dark Tranquiller” Gothenburg style Death Metal with the combination of more modern sort of Black Metal with fast dark melodic riffs. The best track is “Game Of Sacrifice”, which is, largely, the most melodic, powerful and head banging track of the record. Amerise mixes growls with more heated clean vocals. The chorus is pretty catchy with heart beating melody and the closing riff, along with the heavy rhythm, gives the song its title.

The last track, “The Last Dance”, is the second best of this album. It combines the coldness of Novembre with the melody and heaviness of Rotting Christ. The solo parts and the melodic riffs help the vocalist to transmit the emotion of the song. At the end of it Amerise’s vocals sound more like Sentenced’s Ville Laihiala Doomish raspy crooked voice. There aren’t many weak spots in this album, here and there are parts which are rather boring like in “Grinding Dreams” near the end of the song or some parts of “Glass Eyed Boy”.

Lahmia are one of those bands that preserves the old Swedish Melodic Death Metal machine. Playing this role, as preservers, they use atmospheric background as a channel to show more emotions in the songs. This criterion differentiates them from other bands like them. The Metal world should embrace their music and anticipate, with many expectations, their full length album.

Lineup

Francesco Amerise – Lead and backing vocals
Flavio Gianello – Lead, rhythm and acoustic guitars
Samuele Piacenti – Rhythm and acoustic guitars
Corrado Ciaccia – Bass
Fabio Cesarini – Drums and Percussion