Mother-effing Reptiles on a Plane (Reptile Ride - Amoral)

Member Name: Frankingsteins

Product:	Reptile Ride - Amoral
Date:	14/01/08 (37 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Competent melodic death metal without the rubbish bits.

Disadvantages: Rather bland all the same.

The most recent effort from Amoral is a good example of what melodic death metal ought to have sounded like all along: heavy guitars and drums with harsh vocals, complimented by an appropriate lead guitar presence that makes sense, rather than sounding merely like a tribute to 80s hard rock that conflicts with the album's intended effect. 'Reptile Ride' is a solid release, but nothing very special or individual, coming over a decade after this precise sound had already been perfected by Dismember.

Amoral's sound lies towards the heavier and less melodic end of melodic death metal, but retains the customary harsh vocals that are applied across the board. Vocalist Niko Kalliojärvi is fine in the role, but fairly repetitive and lacking any kind of distinctiveness, but at least he doesn't fool himself into thinking he can sing as many similar vocalists do - the only instance of clean vocals comes very briefly in 'Mute,' while his genuine muteness later on makes the instrumental track a particular highlight, despite similarly lacking creative flair. He also indulges in a strange and not entirely welcome bit of spoken word in 'Few and Far Between' that I was worried was going to descend into rap, but still lacked any of the meaningful gravitas that was presumably intended.

In some instances, notably the first track, there seems to be a bit too much going on to keep track of, really being due to some incompatible styles being played against each other in unsuccessful experiment. A few songs incorporate lead guitars well into their sound, such as the second and fourth tracks and the instrumental in which they take on a more significant role, but 'Few and Far Between' is spoiled by a particularly ceaseless and overly repetitive guitar melody. The bass can only really be heard in the instrumental (it seems they're between bass players right now), but this isn't really an issue, and Juhana Karlsson's drums almost entirely fall back on the machine gun style that keeps all of these death metal albums consistent, if a little lacking in character. The power metal keyboards are similar to the guitars, in that sometimes they add a pleasant lighter side to the heavy music, but occasionally play an irritating, jingling melody that really gets on my nerves; despite the apparent invitation to indulge in cheesy theatrics in the instrumental, titled as it is 'Apocalyptic Sci-Fi Fun,' they play it with straight professionalism and come off well.

'Reptile Ride' is another run-of-the-mill melodic death metal album that doesn't try anything too extreme, but could fill in as a reasonable substitute when your more impressive death metal albums become a little stale. At least Amoral have the right idea when it comes to combining elements in this fashion.

1. Leave Your Dead Behind
2. Nervasion
3. Hang Me High
4. Mute
5. Few and Far Between
6. Snake Skin Saddle
7. D Drop Bopo
8. Apocalyptic Sci-Fi Fun
9. Pusher

Summary: Amoral's third album (2007).