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PAGANIZER “Flesh Requiem”
PAGANIZER “Flesh Requiem”
By Dr. Abner Mality
Rogga Johanson, the man of a thousand bands, is back with PAGANIZER, the one that started it all. Honestly, I think the last year or so has seen the notoriously hard-working death metal guitarist slow down a bit, as it no longer seems like we are getting a new Rogga-band release every other month.
With “Flesh Requiem”, PAGANIZER is edging more and more towards the melodic death metal designation. This record has much more in common with EDGE OF SANITY and DESULTORY than the gut-munching of GRAVE or LIK. Now this is not totally Gothernburg-oriented, as the sturdy Stockholm chainsaw sound is still here with plenty of bite. But you can’t ignore the sad melodies that suffuse cuts like “Skeletons”, “The Pyroclastic Excursions” and the rather haunting title track. These are tunes that overflow with melodic power.
Amazingly, Rogga has given most of the lead guitar duty to Dennis Blomberg here. He does a superb job with the leads across the album and if you loved EDGE OF SANITY’s “Purgatory Afterglow”, you’ll go ape for Blomberg’s guitar sound. Rogga still handles lead vocals and his performance is absolutely gravel-smashing, with no cleans in sight. His vocal prowess has been underrated and his death growls are superb here.
12 tracks here, almost of all of them fast and violent with those touches of melody. The evil morbid grind of GRAVE and the heavier DISMEMBER can best be heard on “Hunger For Meat” and “Necromonolithic”, but make no mistake, most of the album edges towards that more melodic death metal sound.
As tired as I sometimes get of Swedish death metal, dammit, Rogga, I still gotta admit, this is top class stuff and one of the best PAGANIZER albums. Maybe dropping a few of your many other bands has helped this out. No complaints here!
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