The Decomposition Process - Absence

The first and so far only release from Dortmund’s Absence is just about the most pointless melodic death metal album I’ve ever heard, in a genre that’s been spiralling increasingly downhill since its conception in the early nineties. Taking all of its cues from the rotting corpse of Gothenburg metal (perhaps explaining the album’s title), every repetitive nuance of every song seems lifted from In Flames’ ‘Whoracle’ released ten years earlier, which to many represented the start of Gothenburg’s decline. In a genre infested with soundalike In Flames clones on the one hand and metalcore on the other (with only rare, occasional bands producing something truly powerful and ...  Read the complete review