LIV SIN – Burning Sermons

Liv Sin’s outstanding 2017 debut Follow Me was Old School Heavy Metal with elements of Thrash and Black Metal. Their sophomore explores a more modern sound by adding in keyboards. While they describe the music as powerful and hard-hitting, they acknowledge the album might surprise a lot of their fans.

The new direction is immediately evident on “Blood Moon Fever” resulting in an unpleasant surprise. The song’s combines superfluous keyboard fills and an ill-advised mixing decision to periodically drop the vocals under the mix. Within this menacing mud soup, the melodic guitar work sounds out of place. This song and others are good songs which struggle to rise above keyboard fills which don’t drive the music and robs them of their innate power and momentum.

“Chapter Of The Witch” shines brightly enough to overcome the din with high speed Classic Metal riffs, a better chorus and melodic guitar touches which don’t sound out of place. “War Antidote” and “At The Gates Of The Abyss” are also highlight tracks. The former’s tempo is too fast and unpretentious for the keyboards to seriously muck up and the latter has stadium size riffs that are separated enough to maintain their identity.

The remaining songs aren’t infused with enough lyrical or musical inspiration to overcome the drone of the keys. Conversely, the keys aren’t able to elevate average material. “Slave To The Machine” is an example of this. The vocalist screams “come on” at the beginning of the song but no fireworks follow. Simple chugging riffs and a monotone synth drone plod forward to a cliché chorus featuring a mark time chant of “hey, hey, hey”.

The band states “Burning Sermons is a riff-heavy collection; showcasing the band’s innate ability to match melody with aggressive metal with ease.” Easy is stretch. The band struggles to meaningfully incorporate keyboards. Fans will likely be slow to warm to this departure in sound.

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TRACKLIST (Highlights: 1, 2, 4, 5)

1. Blood Moon Fever
2. Chapter of the the witch
3. Hope begins to fade
4. War Antidote
5. At the Gates of the abyss
6. Slave to the machine
7. The Sinner
8. Death gives life meaning
9. Ghost in the dark
10. Dead wind intermezzo

LINEUP

Liv Jagrell – Vocals
Patrick Ankermark – Guitars
Chris Bertzell – Guitars
Tomie Winther – Bass
Per Bjevoluk – Drums