ANGEROT
ANGEROT “The Profound Recreant”
By Dr. Abner Mality
ANGEROT originate from the American Midwest, but “The Profound Recreant” could easily be mistaken for a European album. This is a mature and engaging work of symphonic death metal that combines several influences into a mostly pleasing whole.
First, they do have that Swedish chainsaw guitar tone throughout, but the structure of the songs is not the usual ENTOMBED/GRAVE knock off, even though “Horns Ov Moses” sounds like it escaped from an early DISMEMBER album. That’s the most obviously “Swedish” sounding track and it’s a great one, but ANGEROT have more to offer. Much of their vibe is ponderous, dark and doom-tinged death metal with a very deliberate pace...”They Shall Take Up Serpents” and “Grand Feast of the Flesh” being two good examples. Something about these reminds me of those old VITAL REMAINS mini-epics, especially with the monstrous roars of Chad Petit.
The band definitely has a symphonic, orchestrated side and this has always been a tricky path for death metal bands to maneuver. By odd coincidence, I just finished up with the new ATROCITY album and that’s a band that also does that style well. I think ANGEROT are even better when they are in full flow. The use of piano on “Bastard Creature” and the title track is striking...the ivories are very well integrated into the crushing death metal and add their own darkness to the tunes without “sweetening” things. The orchestration is reminiscent of DIMMU BORGIR and CRADLE OF FILTH while staying more death metal than black metal. The opening intro “Das Salz” and acoustic outro “Slaughter Ov Innocence” both feature clean German language vocals and a ton of melody and yet they seem part of the album as a whole.
There’s also a strong American death metal influence, best heard on “In The Company of Wolves”, which features MORBID ANGEL’s Steve Tucker appropriately chiming in. Tucker is one of several guests sitting in, including Andy LaRocque and Jack Owen of DEICIDE. The ultimate impression is that “The Profound Recreant” is a very serious and well thought out death metal album that tries to reach beyond just cranking out another by the numbers release. ANGEROT is poised to be a name to reckon with.